Name/Όνομα: Ερωδιός ο μαλακοειδής*
Scientific name/Επιστημονικό όνομα: Erodium malacoides (L). Willd .
Common name/Κοινό όνομα: Glandular stork’s bill , Soft stork´s bill, Erodium fausse mauve, Malvereigersbek, Άγριο γεράνι, Ερώδιο.
Family/Οικογένεια: GERANIACEAE
* Η απόδοση του είδους στα Ελληνικά είναι εισήγηση του συγγραφέα.
Description
Plant: Annual or biennial, herbaceous, growing up to 60 cm high.
Stem/s: Erect or sprawling, much branched, somewhat angular, green, covered with pointing backwards hispid hairs and scattered glands.
Leaves: Lower leaves radically arranged from the stem, broadly or oblong-ovate, simple, crenate to shallowly-lobed, pinnatifid, apex obtuse, base distinctly cordate, long-petiolate, covered with whitish hispid hairs both sides and many tiny glands beneath; upper leaves opposite, smaller, with less and more acute lobes, short petiole and acute apex; stipules ovate, membranous, white turning brownish with age.
Flowers: Actinomorphic and hermaphrodite, in 3-8 flowered umbels (sciadia); bracts ovate, membranous, white; peduncles and pedicels glandular hairy; sepals 5, alternating with petals, spreading, oblong-ovate, concave, 3 or 5-nerved, with dense glandular hairs externally, glabrous internally, conspicuously cuspidate at apex, a little shorter than petals; petals 5, oblong, pink, violet or magenta, glabrous, apex rounded, with very short claw at base and 3 darker veins at the base; stamens 5 fertile, , alternating with 5 staminodes (infertile stamens), filaments free with a nectary gland at their base, anthers oblong, dorsifixed**, dehiscent longitudinally, orange; ovary superior, hairy, carpels 5, united, split into 5, beak-shaped mericarps; style 1, stigmas 5, dark violet.
Flowering time: March (February)-May.
Fruit: Mericarps; beak spirally twisted at maturity.
Habitat: Roadsides, fields margins, sandy ground from 0-1300 m alt.
Native: Eastern Mediterranean region (Greek islands, Turkey, Cyprus, Israel).
