Erodium maculatum Salzm. ex C.Presl
Erodium maculatum is annual; plant suberect to procumbent, to 60cm.
Leaves pinnate, with deeply pinnatipartite leaflets and with no intercalary leaflets, with few or no glandular hairs.
Inflorescence: Flowers small; petals pinkish purple, unequal, obovate, the upper shorter and broader than the lower; upper 2 multi-spotted, sometimes these merge into a blotch, lower sometimes with smaller markings; stamen filaments two toothed, hairy; staminodes glabrous; pollen yellow; stigma violet.
Fruit: mericarps with eglandular foveole, and furrow half the width of the foveole beneath, rostrum 20-45mm. Awn base without fibres. 2n=40
Distribution: in clay, and limestone-clays in Andalousia, Spain and North Morocco
Synonyms:
Erodium atomarium Delile ex Godr. Nomen Confusum description was of specimens of E. touchyanum which had been labelled as E. atomarinum.
Erodium primulaceum Welw. ex Lange in Index Seminum (C, Hauniensi) 1863: 4 (1864), nom. superfl.
Notes: sometimes reduced to a synonym of E. cicutarium, but is distinct. Flowers have unequal petals and are strongly marked, E. cicutarium has equal, narrow petals and little (2 spots) or not marked, leaflets are deeper and sharper cut. E. primulaceum is genetically isolated from related species – Erodiums cicutarium, aethiopicum, praecox etc.
