Habit: Annual, perennial herb.
Leaf: simple to pinnately compound, cauline opposite; blade lanceolate to reniform in outline, puberulent or short-hairy, base cordate to truncate.
Inflorescence: umbel.
Flower: radial; stamens 5, free, alternate 5 scale-like staminodes.
Fruit: mericarp body indehiscent, fusiform, 1-seeded, base sharply pointed, top generally with 1 pit on each side of beak segment, pits subtended by 1--4 ridges or not; beak segments stiffly hairy adaxially, generally twisted.
Species In Genus: 79 species: temperate America, Eurasia, northern Africa, Australia.
Etymology: (Greek: heron, from bill-like fruit)
Note: Some cultivated for forage, dyes; "beak segments" sometimes called "awns" elsewhere.
Erodium macrophyllum moved to genus
California.
Jepson eFlora Author: Carlos Aedo & Carmen Navarro
Reference: Fiz et al. 2006 Syst Bot 31:739--763
Unabridged Reference: Guittonneau 1972 Boissiera 20:1--154Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Erodium
Previous taxon: California macrophyllaNext taxon: Erodium botrys