Erodium manescavii

Leaves all basal, green, hairy and soft, with lamina 6.5-12.5cm long, ovate-lanceolate, pinnate, with no intercalary leaflets; leaflets 7-11, pinnatifid to pinnatipartite, with teeth acute to subacute; pedicel 4-9.5cm; stipules 2.5-18mm, linear-lanceolate.

Inflorescence: Peduncles from the crown, to 40cm long, bearing umbels of 5-15 flowers; Bracts 2-5, 8-15mm joined to at least ⅔ of their length, green, narrowly membranaceous; sepals 8-9.5mm; mucro 1.7-2.9mm; petals 9-20mm, dark magenta, upper 2 with whitish blotch and feathered and with darker veins, covering ⅓ -– ½ of the petal; nectaries brownish to almost black, staminodes 2.6-2.9mm, pink-purple; stamen filaments 3-4.5mm pink-purple; anthers purple; pollen orange; stigmas dark purple

Fruit: Beak 5-7.5cm; mericarp 8-10.5mm, brown; foveole without glands, without furrow. 2n=40

Distribution: endemic to France, Western Pyrenees, in the Aspe, Ossau and Soule; Spain: Valle de Bertizarana; heathland and grassland on limestone soils.

Identification: E. manescavii is a much larger, courser plant than both E. castellanum and E. carvifolium. The larger bract size is a useful character.

Notes: In cultivation will make fertile hybrids with E. castellanum but will not with E. carvifolium. Most plants offered in nurseries under either E. castellanum or E. manescavii are this hybrid.

Erodium manescavii; photo taken in a garden, Penshurst, Kent; 1990