Erodium salzmannii Del.
Erodium salzmannii is a robust annual, stems 25-60(100)cm ascending, glabrescent or with some eglandular and glandular hairs.
Leaves: leaves lush green, rather soft and ferny, triangular-lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate; no intercalary leaflets; with short eglandular hairs and rarely some glandular; leaflets 7-13, bipinnatisect, segments linear or at least narrow and acute; lamina 4.5-8.5cm; petiole 3-8cm; stipules 5-11mm, lanceolate, membranaceous, whitish-brown.
Inflorescence: umbels of 3-8 flowers; bracts 5-11, 2.8-4.6mm usually adnate into 1-3 laminas, whitish, membranaceous; sepals 3-6 mm, with eglandular hairs, denser towards the base, and some glandular hairs on the abaxial face; mucro 0.1-0.8 mm; petals 5-12 mm all alike, white to violet, with dark veins, without spots; nectaries purple, almost black; staminodes purple, glabrous or slightly hairy towards the base; stamen filaments purple, hairy and often bidentate; anthers yellow to purple; pollen yellow-orange; stigmas pink. Flowers April to June.
Fruit: fruit 4.8-7 cm; mericarp 4.5-6.5 mm, dark brown, with black lunula on an orange background; foveole with an infrafoveolar furrow, lighter brown, without glands; awn has 10-15 turns, the first of which are almost free of long fibres; seedlings have pinnatisect cotyledons. 2n=20 Guitt.
Distribution: coastal sands of the Mediterranean; Portugal to France, Corsica and Sardinia; Morocco to Egypt but also found as far west as the Canary Isles on Lanzarote; often grows with other seashore Erodium species but easily distinguished by its fine sharply cut and pointed, soft leaves. Although frequent, individuals are usually widely separated.
