BRODIUM. ‘3 
Erodium cicutarium (Alfilaria). 
This annual, supposed to have been introduced from Europe, does not 
seem to be mentioned in any work on forage plants. It occurs abun- 
dantly and is of much value for pasture over a large extent of territory in 
northern California and adjoining regions; elsewhere in the United 
States it is sparingly introduced and usually regarded only as a weed, 
though it is not very troublesome. Besides the above name it is known 
as storksbill, pin clover, pin grass, and filaree; it is neither a grass 
nor a clover, but belongs to the geranium family; it starts very early, 
grows rapidly, furnishing good early pasture, and ripens seed before the 
hottest weather; it is of little value as hay, and is not worth introducing 
where the ordinary forage plants can be grown. The seed is seidom 
soivn, but the plant comes spontaneously each year from self-sown seed. 
A few have begun its artificial propagation, and it is undoubtedly worthy 
of introduction into other regions in the South and West having pro- 
longed droughts; it is hardy at the North, but makes a much smaller 
srowth there. ° 
Brewer and Watson, in ‘The Botany of California ” say in regard 
to it: 
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 generally been considered an introduced species, but it is more decidedly 
and widely at home throughout the interior 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 aljilaria, or less commonly as 
pin clover and pin grass, and is a valuable and nutritious forage plant, reputed to 
impart an excellent flavor to milk and butter. 
Prof. E. W. Hilgard, in an article en the Agriculture and Soils of 
California, in the Report of the Department of Agriculture for 1878, 
page 488, says: 
Two species of crane’s-bill (Zrodium cicutarium and moschatum) are even nore coni- 
mon here than in Southern Europe, and the first-named is esteemed as one of the 
most important natural pasture plants, being about the only green thing availablo 
to stock throughout the dry season, and eagerly cropped by them at all times. Its 
Spanish name of alfilerilla (signifying a pin, and now frequently translated into 
‘“nin weed’) shows that it is an old citizen, even if possibly a naturalized one. 
Otanes F. Wright, Temescal, San Bernardino County, Cal. : 
Alfilaria grows plentifully and is native here. It is the best grass that we have 
during the wet season while green, but does not amount to much when dry, for it 
shrinks much in drying, and when dry breaks easily into very fine bits, almost to 
dust. x : 
Alfilaria and bur clover nearly always grow together on the same land; cold 
weather never kills either of them. Stock pick for the alfilaria while growing 
_ (from sanuary to June), but after it dies they hunt for the clover-burs which are on 
the ground, and in their efforts to get the burs they roll the old dry stems into rolls, 
sometimes as big as windrows of hay. 
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