Erodium

Plant Characteristics

Origin:	✈	?

Cultivation

Exposure:	☼	?"?" is not in the list (sun, part-sun, shade, unknown) of allowed values for the "Exposure" property.
Water:	◍	?"?" is not in the list (wet, moist, moderate, dry, less when dormant) of allowed values for the "Water" property.

Scientific Names

Read about Erodium in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Erodium (Greek, a heron; alluding to the beaked fruit). Geraniaceae. Heron's-bill or Stork's-bill. Annual and perennial, some of the perennials grown in flower-gardens and with alpines for their finely cut foliage and mostly purplish or white flowers. The plants suggest the wild and hardy geraniums, from which they differ in having only 5 instead of 10 anther-bearing stamens, the other 5 being reduced to scales; also the tails of the carpels hairy inside and twisting spirally. Herbs, rarely somewhat woody or tufted: Lvs. opposite or alternate, one often smaller than its mate, stipuled, toothed, lobed, or dissected: fls. regular or nearly so, mostly in umbels, of various shades, from crimson-pink to purple, with darker blotches on the 2 upper petals and the venation outlined in darker shades; sepals 5, imbricate; ovary 5-lobed, when ripe splitting into separate caps.-lobes, each lobe 1-seeded: plants usually heavy-scented.— The latest monograph (Knuth, in Engler's Pflanzen- reich, hft. 53, 1912) describes 60 species, widely dispersed in temperate and warm regions. The self- planting of the seeds or carpels of some species is very interesting. These plants are chiefly for the front row of the hardy borders and the rock-garden, where they thrive in a gritty loam. They like dry, sunny spots, and may be trusted with a conspicuous position, being chiefly valued for their steady succession of bloom from June to August. Divided plants are chiefly sold here, but the species are easily propagated by seeds. Some erodiums can be grown in chinks of walls. Some of the annual kinds are widely spread in California and other parts of the West, and E. cicutarium and two or three others are grown for forage. The garden species have not attained much prominence in this country. E. gruinum, L'Her. Annual or biennial, 1½ ft. high, the sta. 1 or few, white-hairy: Lvs. cordate-ovate, undivided or obscurely lobed, dentate: fls. violet-blue, large, the petals broadly obovate and clawed, rounded at apex. Sicily to Persia, N. Afr.—E. Stephanianum, Willd. Annual or biennial, villous, branched: Lvs. nearly glabrous, bipinnatifid. the lobes linear: peduncles 2-3 in. high, -5-fld.; fls. dark purple; petals scarcely surpassing sepals, very broad-ovate. Temp. Asia. L. H. B. CH The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

Cultivation

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Propagation

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Pests and diseases

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Gallery

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References

• Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963

External links

• w:Erodium. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
• Erodium QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)