Erodium celtibericum

Leaves very small, silvery, triangular-ovate in outline, bi- to tripinnatisect with intercalary leaflets; the leaflets held very closely and upright like a hedgehog’s spines, ultimate divisions oval, hairs short, to 0.5mm, also erect, glandular. Stipules adnate on half or more of their length, triangular or broadly triangular

Erodium celtibericum, El cabezo de las Cruces, Sierra de Gúdar, 18/05/2014. Credit: Salomé Bielsa - 'Erodium celtibericum (I)' licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Inflorescence: umbels of 2-5 flowers; flowers 15-20mm across; bracts 4-6, 4-7mm, free, whitish; pedicels with long glandular hairs and a few eglandular; sepals 3.5-7mm with some glandular and eglandular hairs, mucro 0.3-0.8mm. Petals 7-11 mm, unequal, white, sometimes lightly tinted pink, veined purple, the upper often, and sometimes the lower petals, with a small purple mark on the claw, covering up to a 1/3 of the surface, sometimes absent, and all petals notched; despite the (not conspicuous) marks, the flowers appear regular; staminodes and stamen filaments glabrous, anthers pink or purple, pollen coral-pink, stigmas whitish-pink to purple. Flowers May to August (September).

Fruit: rostrum 15-20 mm, mericarp 4-5 mm, brown foveole with stalked glands and edged with rigid fibres, no furrow. 2n=20

Erodium celtibericum, El cabezo de las Cruces, Sierra de Gúdar, 18/05/2014. Credit: Salomé Bielsa - 'Erodium celtibericum (V)' licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Erodium celtibericum, El cabezo de las Cruces, Sierra de Gúdar, 18/05/2014. Credit: Salomé Bielsa - 'Erodium celtibericum (IV)' (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Erodium celtibericum, El cabezo de las Cruces, Sierra de Gúdar, 18/05/2014. Credit: Salomé Bielsa - 'Erodium celtibericum (II)' (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Distribution: Thickets and grasslands of open areas, in shallow limestone soils, stony ledges and rock fissures; (1000) 1400-2050 m. Puertos de Beceite and environs, and central and southern Sistema Iberico -sierra de Albarracin; E of the Serrania de Cuenca, Javalambre, Gudar and Penagolosa