SPECIES DESCRIPTION
ERODIUM MALACOIDES
Family and Genus:- See- GERANIACEAE
Common Names:- Soft stork's bill, Mallow leaved stork's bill.
Homotypic Synonyms:- Erodion malachoideum, Geranium malacoides.
Meaning:- Erodium (Gr) Heron (reference to the shape of fruit, stork's-bill).
Malacoides (Gr) Malva-like, soft to touch.
General description:- An erect to sprawling, short to medium, hairy, often
glandular annual or biennial.
Stems:-
1) (3-)10-60 cm, with deflexed hairs, often glandular.
Leaves:-
1) 2-10 x 1-5 cm, ovate to oblong, cordate, dentate, sometimes pinnatifid or
3-lobed.
Flowers:-
1) Umbels, with 3-7 flowers; bracts several, ovate-orbicular, often hairy, whitish.
2) Hairs, on the pedicels and sepals usually glandular.
3) Bracts, at the base of the umbel at least 3, ovate to lanceolate.
4) Sepals, 5-7 mm.
5) Petals, 5-9 mm, purplish.
Fruit:-
1) Mericarps, 5 mm, with white or brownish hairs; apical pits deep, usually
glandular, with a wide, deep furrow at the base.
2) Beak, 18-35 mm.
Key features:-
1) Leaves, at least 3 cm wide. undivided, pinnatifid or pinnatisect, sometimes
compound at the base, but if so with only 1(-2) pairs of distinct leaflets.
3) Apical, pits of the mericarp with a furrow at the base.
4) Bracts, at the base of the umbel at least 3, ovate to lanceolate.
5) Beak, of the fruit 18-35 mm.
Habitat:- Olive groves, field margins, occasionally in open dry shrubby vegetation or
coastal habitats. 0-1100 m.
Distribution:- Mediterranean region and SW Asia. Widespread on Crete.
Flowering time:- Feb-June.
Photos by:- Steve Lenton
