Erodium ciconium

Leaves up tp 9cm, pinnate at least at the leaf base, at the tip the leaf runs together to be pinnatifid, leaflets pinnatifid, ultimate segments dentate or pinnatifid, intercalary leaflets present; laminae rather broad, soft and hairy, blunt.

Erodium ciconium. In Torà (Segarra-Catalunya) at 590 m. Altitude 16/04/2011 Credit: Isidre Blanc, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Erodium ciconium in Blagoevgrad, W Bulgaria 08/05/2018 Credit: Krzysztof Ziarnek, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Inflorescence: Umbels of 3-10 flowers; bracts ovate lanceolate, densely hairy; sepals 12-15mm, glandular hairy; petals violet to blue-mauve, petals falling usually by noon; staminodes ciliate but not hairy.

Fruit: Mericarp 9-11mm, sparsely course hairy; foveole large, densely covered in capitate hairs, without furrow; awn barbate with sparse long hairs and short hairs; beak 60-100mm but thin, near rapier-like where that of E. gruinum is fat but a similar length range (60-110mm) & E. telavivense 120mm.

2n=18

Distribution: endemic to Mediterranean region; Spain and Morocco to Egypt, Turkey and the Caucasus; dry places, roadsides, river sands.

Synonym: Erodium cyconioides Tzvelev

Erodium turkmenum (Litniv.)A.Grossh.

Annual; stems 10-20 (-30) cm, branches widely diverging, sometimes almost recumbent, together with the leaves, thickly covered in glandular indumentum.

Inflorescence: The leaves are oval-oblong; their segments are strongly dissected into narrow slices, with intercalary lobes, thickly covered in glandular indumentum.

Fruit: rostrum 7-10mm; otherwise like E. ciconium.

Notes: very close to and possible should be united with the variable E. ciconium.