ERODIUM. 
E.. hymenodes is not very pretty, being yet more in the way of a 
scented-leaved Pelargonium with fat undivided leaves. 
E. chamaedryoeides, however, leaps to quite the other end of the 
scale. For this is that lovely tiny species from the lower limestones 
of the Balearic Islands and Corsica whichused to be called H. Reichardt, 
forming a neat mass, not an inch high, of minute dark scalloped foliage, 
in tufts and rosettes on its stalks, amid which rise up all the summer 
through innumerable pretty little white stars, each by itself on a stem 
of about half an inch or rather more. This treasure has a stout 
stock and a deep root ; as a rule, moraine proves too jejune, and it 
should be planted in a choice sunny ledge in generous depth of 
good light soil. 
E. corsicum is not by any means so small, but forms mats and 
wide carpets of silver-downy, crumpled, scalloped leaves, among 
which sit the rose-pink flowers with all the petals of equal size, and 
veined delightfully with a deeper colour. The plant really makes a 
branching mass of stems, but its habit is so dense that nothing is 
seen of this but the close carpet of soft grey-velvet foliage, studded and 
jewelled with the numberless glowing blooms. This should also have a 
sunny, if lower and less choice place, and its running arms can easily 
be taken off in summer and struck as cuttings. Its only homes are 
in Corsica and Sardinia. 
#. gruinum is the one annual or biennial species that shall here find 
a place, and this on account of its especial and remarkable beauty, 
For it is a frail tuft, with a few soft leaves, of heart-shaped general 
outline, but then very deeply lobed into fives or threes, the lower 
lobes often cutting nearly to the base, and all of them scalloped all 
round. From this slight tuft spring a few naked stems of 8 or 10 
(or sometimes 20) inches, each bearing a single nobly large flower of 
violet, and not unlike a big Czar-violet in shape, but with an eye of 
darker colour. It may be seen throughout the whole Eastern circuit 
of the Mediterranean. 
Group IIJ.—ABSINTHOEIDEA 
All the leaves slashed on each side to the leaf-stalk and then slashed 
again: all with true stems, branching and set with foliage (except 
one). 
E. absinthoeides must, for its beauty’s sake, be forgiven the per- 
plexities that it has occasioned, alike to those who compile catalogues 
and to those who con them. For it is also H. anthemifoliwm (Marsh), 
E. petraeum (Sibth, and Sm.), H. olympicum (Clem.), HZ. Sibthorbianum 
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