CHAPTER X 
THE RELATIVES OF THE HERB ROBERT: THE 
STORKSBILL 
MUST now say a little about the Erodiums, 
their popular name, Heronsbill, harmonizing 
with the scientific, which is derived from the Greek 
word for a heron cpadios. 
The only species that I have had under obser- 
vation is known also as the Storksbill ;* it is a more 
or less hairy and glandular plant that grows in waste 
places and on dry sunny banks and heaths, and it is 
common in Great Britain, more especially by the_ 
sea. Despite general appearances there is never any 
excuse for mistaking it, in any of its stages, for a 
Cranesbill; the cotyledons are quite different, having 
one large terminal lobe and two small basal ones 
like little squares, one on each side of the midrib, 
and the foliage leaves are cut featherwise. 
Instead of one or two flowers to each stalk there 
are about half a dozen, approximately half an inch 
in diameter, with rosy petals, and all three Erodiums 
agree with the Small Dovesfoot in five of the ten 
stamens being reduced to antherless scales. 
There is again no vegetative propagation. The 
Storksbill is an annual or a biennial in the same sense 
* Hrodium cicutarium, L’ Hérit. 
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