Erodium laciniatum, (Cav.) Willd.

5. E. laciniatum (Cav.) Willd. View in CoL , Sp. Pl. 3: 633 (1800).

Annual or biennial; stems 7-50 cm, with deflexed hairs at least near the base. Leaves 2-7 cm, oblong to broadly ovate, very variously dissected: undivided and irregularly serrate, or with 3 pinnatifid lobes, or almost bipinnatisect with linear-lanceolate segments. Umbels with 4-9 flowers; bracts 2, suborbicular to reniform, glabrous, brown; hairs on pedicels and sepals eglandular. Sepals c. 7 mm, distinctly mucronate; petals 7-10 mm, purplish. Mericarps 4-5-6-5 mm, with short, whitish hairs; apical pits shallow, eglandular, without a furrow at the base. Beak 35-90 mm. 2/i = 20. Maritime sands and other dry places. Mediterranean region, S. Portugal. Al Co Cr Gr Hs It Lu Sa Si Tu [Ga].

Plants from S.W. Spain (near Cadiz) show some approach to 6 in the structure of their fruit, and may perhaps be hybrids.

Some plants from C. & E. Spain and the Aegean region differ in some or all of the following characters: bracts 3 or more, acute, white; calyx and pedicels glandular-pubescent; sepals scarcely mucronate; beak 30-40 mm. In S.W. Asia there are plants in which these characters are fairly well correlated, and they have been distinguished as subsp. pulverulentum (Cav.) B. L. Burtt & P. Lewis , Kew Bull. 1954: 405 (1954) ( E. cavanillesii Willk. ). In Europe, however, the correlation is poor, and no such distinction seems practicable.