Erodium cicutarium, (L.) L'Her.

25. E. cicutarium (L.) L’Hér. View in CoL in Aiton, Hort. Kew. 2: 414 (1789).

Usually caulescent and annual, often somewhat fetid; stem up to 60(-100)cm. Leaves up to 15 cm, pinnate, without intercalary leaflets, with variable indumentum; leaflets pinnatifid to pinnate, but always divided for more than half-way to midrib. Umbels with up to 12 flowers; bracts brownish. Sepals 5-7 mm; petals 4-11 mm, purplish-pink, lilac or white. Mericarps 4-7 mm, with ascending hairs; apical pits eglandular. Beak 10-70 mm. Cultivated or disturbed ground, sandy places and dry grassland. Throughout Europe, but probably introduced in much o f the centre, north and east. All except F a Is Sb. A very variable and difficult complex. Within the compass of the species as here delimited over 30 binomials have been proposed for European plants (omitting those of A. Jordan); but the delimitation of these supposed species has been attempted, if at all, with reference only to immediately adjacent populations. The only recent attempt to survey the field more widely is that o f Litardière in Briquet, Prodr. FI. Corse 2(2): 28-35 (1936), and we follow here his taxonomic scheme, subject to nomenclature! revisions suggested by Guittonneau, Bull. Soc. Bot. Fr.

110: 43-48,241-244 (1963). Each ofthe 3 subspecies here proposed has a fairly distinctive facies, but intermediates are common, whose cytological status is often unknown. Plants intermediate between subsp. (a) and (b) are especially common in N.W. Europe, and have been named E. cicutarium subsp. dunense Andreas, Nederl. Kruidk. Arch. 54: 198 (1947) (£. glutinosum subsp. dunense (Andreas) Rothm.). They have mostly 2zi = 40; but one variant has been found with 2«=60, which has been interpreted as an amphidiploid hybrid between subspp. (a) and (b) and named E. danicum K. Larsen , Biol. Meddel. Kong. Danske Vid. Selsk. 23(6): 14 (1958). 1 Mericarp without or with a very faint furrow below apical pit (b) subsp. bipinnatum

1 Mericarp with a distinct furrow below apical pit

2 Hairs on mericarp arising from blackish tubercles; beak

40-70 mm (c) subsp. jacquinianum

2 Mericarp without blackish tubercles; beak 10-40 mm (a) subsp. cicutarium