THE STORK’S-BILL— continued. 
As in Geranium, the flowers are borne erect in many-flowered, axillary, 
umbellate cymes on rather long peduncles, with an involucre of membranous 
bracts at the base of the cluster. They vary from a third to half an inch in 
diameter, the smaller-flowered forms being apparently often self-pollinated, whilst 
the larger-flowered ones are more dependent upon insect aid. There is consider- 
able confusion as to the nomenclature of these varieties ; but we can apparently 
recognise two extreme types. One has small flowers, practically polysymmetric 
and homogamous or slightly protogynous, shedding their petals within a few hours 
of their unfolding, having their anthers close to the stigmas, and setting seed readily 
when self-pollinated. The other type has larger blossoms, with their two posterior 
petals shorter, broader, and deeper red than the three anterior ones, and marked with 
three dark lines or honey-guides and a red or green spot at their base. In this 
type the three posterior nectaries secrete more honey than the others, and the 
flower is pronouncedly protandrous, the anthers maturing a day before the stigmas 
and the petals not falling till the second day. 
The carpels are hairy and each has a circular pit near its apex and, in some 
forms, a concentric hollow or furrow below this pit. The carpels do not burst but 
contract over the single seed they each mature. Owing apparently to a curvature 
in the lignified portions of the beak of the fruit, the awns take a spiral twist in 
becoming detached. They are often thrown a considerable distance and are fringed 
on their inner surface with stiff bristles. The delicately hygroscopic character of the 
awn and the reflexed hairs on the ripe carpel or mericarp itself serve to bury the seed 
and thus protect it from drought. The free end of the awn catching in any 
neighbouring object, the awn itself untwists and thus lengthens when moistened, 
driving the pointed mericarp into the ground: the reflexed hairs prevent its being 
withdrawn when the awn on drying coils up again ; and the next moistening drives 
the carpel with its contained seed still deeper. 
White-flowered varieties of the Stork’s-bill occur in a wild state ; and the 
larger, allied species, E. moschatum L’Heritier, having been formerly cultivated for the 
sake of its musk-scented leaves, has acquired not only the popular name of Muscovy , 
but also the curious abbreviation Covey. Other old names applied to the Stork’s-bill 
are Pink Needle and Powk Needle, the latter apparently from the same corruption of the 
name of the Old World sprite, as in Mr. Kipling’s place-name Pook’s-hill. 
Several species of Erodium are grown in gardens, chiefly as rock-plants, their 
requirements differing but little from those of the Geraniums. Many of the more 
familiar garden plants popularly known as Geraniums, such as the Scarlet, Tricolour, 
and Ivy-leaved groups, are species of the mainly South African genus Pelargonium, 
which differs from Geranium in having a honey-containing adherent spur forming 
a slender tube down the flower-stalk from an opening at the base of the posterior 
sepal, whilst the markings of the petals sometimes emphasise this monosymmetry. 
