Erodium ruthenicum

Perennial, greyish from dense indumentum and numerous standing out and downward directing bristly hairs; eglandular; stem 20-70 cm ascending or procumbent, branched.

Leaves: Leaf outline prolonged ovate, more or less heart shape, to 8 cm wide, 7 cm long, lower blade pinnately dissected with one free pair of leaflets at the leaf base, upper pinnatifid or lobed with deeply lobed segments; segment parts and lobes large serrate.

Inflorescence: Umbels many-flowered, 3-13 flowers 2.5 cm across, violet with a red mid vein; sepals 5-6 mm, 9 mm in fruit, with long mucro 2-3 mm; petals prolonged obovate 14-16mm.

Fruit: fruit 5-7.6 cm; mericarp 6 mm with no furrow beneath the foveole; rostrum 45-70 mm.

Distribution: endemic to S Russian steppes in podsols; sandy and stony places in European part around Black Sea (Bessarabia); Georgia, far west near coast of Black Sea and Russian border.