E R O D I U M cicutarium.
Hemlock Stork’s-bill.
MONADELPHIA Pentandria.
Gen. Char. Cal. 5-leaved. Petals 5. Honey-glands 5 .
Barren filaments 5. Fruit beaked, separating into
5 capsules, each tipped with a long spiral awn,
bearded on the inside.
Spec. Char. Flower-stalks many-flowered. Leaves
pinnate ; leaflets sessile, pinnatifid and cut.
Syn. Erodium cicutarium. L ’ Her it. in Ait. Hi K e w .
v. 2. 4 1 4 . Sm. FI. Brit. 727. Belli. 266. Sibth.
2 1 1 . Abbot. 147.
Geranium cicutarium. Linn. Sp. PI. 951. Huds. 300.
fVith. 609. Hull. 154. Curt. Lond.fasc. 1. L 51.
G. cicutge folio inodorum. Rail Syn. 357.
12. G. inodorum album. Rail Syn. 357.
y. G. pimpinellae folio. Hill, in Raii Syn. 358.
Erodium pimpinellaefolium. Sibth. 211.
F r e q u e n t in waste ground, especially on a sandy soil,
flowering from June to August or September.
Root annual, tap-shaped, whitish. Stems various in number
and luxuriance, procumbent, spreading, mostly branched,
leafy, somewhat angular, hairy. Leaves alternate towards
the root; often opposite from luxuriance near the extremity
of each branch; pinnated; the leaflets mostly alternate, sessile,
pinnatifid, acutely cut, hairy. Stipulas in pairs, ovate, acute,
membranous. Flower-stalks opposite to the leaves when the
latter are alternate, otherwise axillary, elongated, each bearing
an umbel of several pretty rose-coloured flowers, white in
variety /3. Stamens simple. Capsules inversely conical, vertical,
single-seeded, bristly with reflexed hairs.
The variety y, reckoned by some a distinct species, has 2
or 3 of its petals elegantly marked with a green depression
near the base; but we have found that circumstance very
variable, and occurring chiefly by the sea, or else in chalky
ground. Some years it abounds in places where only the
common kind, with here and there a green spot, will be found
the next season.
E . cicutarium can scarcely be called “ inodorous,” but
its leaves have not the musky sc$nt of E. moschatum, t. 902.
u,j „ j/jaL J^ y'StdLAfALi*-