Erodium botrys (Cav.)Bertol.
Erodium botrys is an annual caulescent herb 7-60 cm with fine branching roots; stems are hairy, decumbent to ascending, with ± patent eglandular hairs, some long glandular hairs especially towards the apex.
Leaves oblong to ovate, pinnatifid to pinnatipartite – sometimes the basal segments are separated almost to the vein, glabrescent or with scattered eglandular hairs and rarely a few glands, principle segments 7-12, ± deeply dentate, with acute or obtuse teeth; basal leaves numerous, in a flat rosette at first, with limb 2-9.5 x 0.4-4.5 cm; petiole 0.7-10 cm; stipules 3.5-7 mm, ovate-oblong, membranaceous, whitish, glabrous.
Inflorescence axillary with 1-5 ; bracts 2-6, 1.8-4.5 mm, somewhat welded at the base, scarious, glabrous, whitish; pedicels with ± patent hairs, some eglandular and abundant glandular; sepals 5-8x 2-4 mm, with abundant glandular and eglandular hairs; mucro 0.5-2.1 mm; petals 6.5-12 x 3-5mm, all similar, pink to purple-blue, without spots at the base; nectaries dark green; staminodes green glabrous; stamens with filaments gradually widening towards the base, whitish, with hairs on the abaxial face; anthers blue to purple; pollen yellow orange; stigmas green or brown.
Fruit 85-132 mm not less, green at base but red at tip; mericarp 8.5-12.2 mm not less; foveole with two to three furrows beneath, no glands, seed cotyledons have many incisions and often red edged. 2n = 40, 60.
Plants with flowers of dull bluish-purple are likely to be E. brachycarpum. Beak and seed details separate the 2 species; in the Mediterranean region E. botrys is always in sandy soils; E. brachycarpum in poor hard soils so rarely are together; elsewhere they are found together and hybridise.
Distribution: Endemic to Mediterranean, on nitrified sandy soils, on roadsides, slopes and wasteland 0-1200 m, south and south west Europe, north Africa, Canaries and Madeira and Palestine, but now global.
First published in Amoen. Ital.: 35 (1819)
