Erodium moschatum (L)L’Her.
Erodium moschatum is an annual to biennial herb, 8-90 cm, roots fine, branched. Whole plant smells of musk. Flowering stems procumbent, ascending or sometimes erect, with eglandular and glandular hairs.
Leaves oblong-lanceolate, pinnate; with scattered eglandular hairs, abundant and erect on the petioles, and with glands and glandular hairs; leaflets 5-15, often slightly petiolate, ovate and crenate, dentate-serrate to pinnatifid, not pinnatisect. Basal leaves with lamina 5-23cm and petiole 1-14cm; stipules 5-13mm, ovate, membranaceous, whitish.
Inflorescence: Umbels of 5-12 flowers; bracts 4-8, 2-4mm, ovate, usually ± joined, sometimes all free, membranaceous, whitish, glabrous or with some hairs on the lower surface; sepals 4-6mm, with patent glandular hairs, some eglandular hairs, and some glands on the lower face; mucro 0.1-1.8mm; petals 5.5-12.5mm, all alike, purple or purple-bluish with dark veins but without spots: nectaries olive green; staminodes white-pink or violet, glabrous; stamen filaments pink or violet, glabrous; anthers purple; pollen yellow orange; stigmas whitish to pink.
Fruit 2-4.5cm, held prominently upright; mericarp 4.5-6mm; foveole large, glandular with a large glandular furrow beneath; spiral begins from the carpel, has a few long bristles among the short. 2n=20 Guitt.
Distribution: pastures, waste ground, roadsides, on most soil types; endemic to Europe, Africa, Middle East: Azores, Canary Is, Madeira, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Great Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardegna, Sicily, Malta, Greece, Cyprus, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Austria, Turkey, Ukraine; introduced Belarus, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Norway: now global
Notes: Plant size can vary widely dependent on soil type; on a thin, poor or well drained soil the plant can be quite small, similar to E. cicutarium in size; on a good fertile soil the plant can be quite lush, to 90cm
