How to identify Erodium moschatum (Musk Stork's-Bill)

This project collects observations of Erodium moschatum (Musk Stork's-Bill) in California to facilitate identification and prevent misidentification of this species in iNaturalist. E. moschatum is one of the most frequently misidentified species in the Geraniaceae family.

Photo tips:

• It’s important to get a picture of the entire plant.
• It's also helpful to get close-up pictures of the face of the flowers, sepals, leaves, and fruits, if present.
• If there are multiple plants in the picture, it’s helpful to crop your photo to focus on the plant of interest.

How to identify Erodium moschatum:

• Height: The young plant starts with a flat rosette of compound leaves and grows to a maximum of about half a meter (20 in) in height.
• Leaves & Stems: Each leaf is up to 15 cm (5.9 in) long with many oval-shaped, toothed leaflets along a central vein which is white and hairy. The stems are green with white hairs (hence the name white-stem filaree).
• Flowers: Each inflorescence has a large number of flowers in an umbel structure. The small flowers have five sepals behind five petals in shades of purple, pink, and rarely white. Each petal is just over 1 cm (0.4 in) long. The sepal tips are smooth, not bristly.
• Fruit: The filaree fruit has a small, glandular body with a long green style up to 4 cm in length.
• Habitat: This plant can be found in open, disturbed areas.
• Flowering Time: February through September.

Similar Species:

• Erodium cicutarium (Redstem Stork's-Bill)

How to differentiate E. moschatum from E. cicutarium:

• E. moschatum stem is green-white and thicker; E. cicutarium stem is red and thinner.
• E. moschatum leaflets are toothed or shallowly divided; E. cicutarium leaflets are deeply lobed or divided.
• E. moschatum sepals are smooth; E. cicutarium has bristles on the sepal tips.
• E. moschatum typically has a larger number of flowers in an umbel shape; E. cicutarium has fewer flowers in a loose cluster.
• See this page for a helpful illustration: https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=25048

• These observations show both species side-by-side. You can see they look very similar:
  ** https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/19165993
  ** https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/20952793

• See these projects for thousands of examples of each species:
  ** https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/erodium-moschatum-musk-stork-s-bill
  ** https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/erodium-cicutarium-red-stemmed-filaree

References:

• Calflora: https://www.calflora.org/app/taxon?crn=3452

• Jepson eFlora:
  ** https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=25048
  ** https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/get_JM_treatment.pl?4416,4417,4424

• iNaturalist:
  ** How to identify Erodium moschatum (Musk Stork's-Bill)
  ** https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/57092-Erodium-moschatum
  ** Parent Project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/erodium-genus-stork-s-bills-california/
  ** https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/erodium-moschatum-musk-stork-s-bill
  ** https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/erodium-seeds
  ** https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/erodium-phytopathology

Posted on January 8, 2022 11:33 AM by truthseqr