94 GERANIACE^E. Geranium. 



About 100 species are found distributed through the temperate regions of both hemispheres, of 

 which only 7 or 8 are found in North America. 



* Annual or biennial : flowers small. 



1. Gr. Carolinianum, Linn. Decumbent or ascending, diffusely branched, pu- 

 bescent : leaves 1 to 2|- inches in diameter, palmately 5 - 7-parted, the divisions 

 cleft into oblong-linear lobes : pedicels short or frequently slender and more or less 

 elongated : petals rose-colored, equalling the awned sepals, 2 or 3 lines long : carpels 

 hairy, 1-J- to 2 J lines long, the tails a half to an inch long. 



From Los Angeles to British America and eastward across the continent ; rather common in 

 spring and early summer. 



* -* Perennial : flowers large : stems naked beloio, dichotomonshj branched above. 



2. Gr. Richardsonii, Fischer & Meyer. Stems. 1 or 2 feet high : pubescence 

 usually fine, and appressed, or somewhat glandular and spreading upon the pedicels : 

 leaves 2 to 5 inches broad, 5 - 7-cleft nearly to the base ; the rather broad lobes 

 more or less incisely toothed : sepals 3 or 4 lines long, including the awn : petals 

 purple or sometimes white : carpels and beak 12 to 15 lines long. — G. albiflorum, 

 Hook. Fl. i. 116, t. 40, & Bot. Mag. t. 3124 ; not of Ledebour. 



Bloody Canon by Mono Lake, Brewer. Abundant eastward in the watered canons of Nevada 

 and Utah, and in the Rocky Mountains from British America to New Mexico. 



3. Gr. incisum, Nutt. Closely resembling the last, but more villous and gland- 

 ular-pubescent ; leaves rather more narrowly and laciniately cut : sepals 5 or 6 lines 

 long : petals usually deep-purple : carpels with the beak 1 1 inches long. — G. albi- 

 florum, var. (?) incisum, Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 206. G. erianthum, Lindl. Bot. Beg. 

 xxviii, t. 52, exdl. syn. 



Yosemite Valley (Brewer) ; Sierra Co. (Lemmon) ; northward to the British boundary, Mon- 

 tana and the Saskatchewan. Intermediate forms between this species and the last appear to 

 occur. 



G. oiESMTOSUM, James, of the Bocky Mountains and New Mexico, has been collected in Cen- 

 tral Arizona and may perhaps reach the borders of California. It is more slender and more 

 diffusely branched, with smaller broadly lobed leaves, finely pubescent. 



2. ERODIUM, L'Her. 



Characters as in the last ; but with the filaments dilated, the 5 opposite to the 



petals sterile and scale-like ; carpels closed, obconical, attenuate to an acute horny 



bearded base ; the tails long-bearded on the inner side and becoming spirally 



twisted. — Leaves commonly pinnate and bipinnately parted or lobed : peduncles 



terminal or lateral, umbellately 2 - several-flowered, with a 4-bracted involucre at 



the base of the pedicels ; petals small. 



A genus of perhaps 50 species, mostly of the Old World, very widely dispersed. Ours are 

 essentially annuals. 



* Leaves pinnate or pinnatifld, the divisions lobed or toothed. All introduced ? 



1. E. cicutarium, L'Her. Hairy, much branched from the base : leaves pin- 

 nate, the leaflets laciniately pinnatifid with narrow acute lobes ; stipules mostly 

 small : peduncles exceeding the leaves, bearing a 4 - 8-flowered umbel : sepals 1 

 to 3 lines long, acute : petals bright rose-color, a little longer : tails of the carpels 

 1 or 2 inches long : pedicels slender, at length refiexed, the fruit still erect. 



Very common throughout the State, extending to British Columbia, New Mexico, and Mexico ; 

 also widely distributed in South America and the Eastern Continent. It has been generally con- 

 sidered an introduced species, but it is more decidedly and widely at home throughout the in- 

 terior than any other introduced plant, and according to much testimony it was as common 

 throughout California early in the present century as now. It is popularly known as Alfilaria, 



