Perennial with a woody tap root with small round tubers: branching, sparsely leafy, annual flowering stems to 50cm, the remains forming a loose mat; leaves, sepals and stems hairless (var crassifolium) or hairy ( var hirtum).
Erodium crassifolium; Morocco; Photo credit : Fouad Msanda, licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).Erodium crassifolium at Wadi Gvanim, Israel; Mar 5, 2020; Photo credit: Omer Dan; from iNaturalist.org; licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Leaves entire but deeply and widely lobed and sharp toothed so that they might appear to be a mere continuous film of lamina around the main veins.
Erodium crassifolium; Morocco; Photo credit : Fouad Msanda, licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Inflorescence: Umbels of 4-8 scentless flowers 1.6-2.5cm across, pink or violet, or petals carmine pink to almost red; flowers with and without markings can appear on the same plant, petals rounded; sepals have no mucro.
Erodium crassifolium at Wadi Gvanim, Israel; Mar 5, 2020; Photo credit: Omer Dan; from iNaturalist.org; licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC 4.0)Erodium crassifolium – Morocco; Photo credit : Fouad Msanda, licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Fruit: beak 5-10cm. 2n=20
Erodium crassifolium, on Naffousa Mountain, North west of Libya: Photo credit: Nermien Elgheriani; from the IGG Facebook Group, Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Distribution: endemic to N Africa & Arabia; Algeria, Arabia, Crete, Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia
Erodium crassifolium – Morocco; Photo credit : Bernadette Baud, licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
