RED-STEMMED FILAREE. ALFILERILLA. CLOCKS. PIN-CLOVER.

Erodium cicutarium, L'Her. Geranium Family.

Leaves.—Chiefly radical in a depressed rosette; six to ten inches long; dissected into narrow toothed lobes. Stem-leaves smaller. Flowers.—Pink; four to eight in an umbel; parts in fives. Petals.—Four lines long. Stamens.—Five perfect, with flattened filaments; five reduced to mere scales. Carpels and styles one or two inches long; separating upward from a central axis into twisted, bearded tails. Hab.—Throughout the State.

The name "alfilerilla" is Spanish, coming from alfiler, a needle, and refers to the long, slender beak of the carpels. By corruption it has become "filaree."

This plant is found in abundance everywhere, and is one of our most valuable forage-plants. It varies greatly in size, and becomes very rank in growth where the soil is rich. Ordinarily, it makes its appearance soon after the beginning of the rainy season, as a rosette of leaves lying upon the ground, and later it sends up its reddish stems. Its seed-vessels look like a group of fantastic, long-billed storks, and the long beaks of the carpels, as they separate from the central axis, begin to curl about any convenient object. They are thus widely disseminated in the hair of animals and the clothing of people. Children call them "clocks," and love to stand the seed up in their clothing and watch the beaks wind slowly about, like the hands of a timepiece.

We have several other species of Erodium. E. moschatum, L' Her., is a coarser plant whose foliage has a musky fragrance, especially when wilted. It is also a valuable forage-plant and is commonly known as "musky filaree" or "green-stemmed filaree."

E. Botrys, Bertoloni, is a very abundant plant. Its flowers are larger, six lines across, and are pink, strongly veined with wine-color. The beaks of its carpels are sometimes four inches long.

[RED-STEMMED FILAREE—Erodium cicutarium.]

REDWOOD-SORREL.