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HEMLOCK STORK'S-BILL
Erodium cicutarium
Family GERANIACEAE
To be found on cultivated lands and dry pastures, espeeially near the coast.
It is an annual. From a thick taproot it often forms a dense tuft, from which the short stems extend. The pinnate leaves are cut up into a large number of leaflets, arranged in slightly irregular pairs on either side of the rib, and these leaflets are again eut up in to many irregular lobes.
The pink flowers are borne in the form of umbels, consisting of from two to twelve flowers, and comprise five sepals, five petals, ten stamens (five of which are imperfeet) and five stigmas.
The tails of the earpels are lined with silky hairs, they twist spirally, eausing the hairs to stand out at right-angles. The seed remains attached to the tail, which becomes detached from the axis of the style and falls to the ground. There the twisted tail is altemately lengthened and shortened by moisture and dryness, and this movement gradually forces the seed into the ground.
Flowering from June to September.
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The calyx is two-lipped and there are five petals, a large up per petal, two lateral ones, and a erodium cicutarium lower pair which are united, forming a boat-shaped body. Within this body lie the stamens and pistil, and the former have the filaments united in to a tube within erodium cicutarium which lies the ovary. Flowering from April to June. Though this handsome plant will be found growing apparently wild in the hedgerow and on the borders of fields, it must cicutarium erodium be not be hastily concluded to be a native. The species is largely grown in this country as a green fodder plant, for which it is highly esteemed, and it cicutarium erodium has escaped from the fields and reproduced itself without man's aid.
There are ten stamens and three styles. Five cicutarium erodium of the stamens elevate themselves so that the anthers com e out of the tube and discharge their pollen. That pollen is produced for the good of the species, for erodium cicutarium it can be of no use to the flower that produced it. When carried by some insect, it scrves to fertilize another flower. Flowering April to June.
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