North American Storksbill Gardens for Wild Geraniums and Storksbill

Summary: North American storksbill gardens put two geranium family members charged with, and one suspected of, pushiness into one horticultural basket.

fields of storksbill (Erodium cicutarium), also known as redstem filaree, Panoche Hills BLM (US Bureau of Land Management), western Fresno County, northern California; Elaine with Grey Cats, CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr

Concerns over North American storksbill gardens arise from storksbill adapting to light, moisture, nutrients, soils and temperatures northward beyond United States borders with Canada and southward beyond United States borders with Mexico.

Extra-continental origins in southern Europe's Mediterranean region and weed designations in Canada and the United States bother critics of the Geraniaceae family member of geranium-related herbs. Native and non-native vegetation conduct aggressive land invasions that compromise ecosystem diversity, health and yields even though natural controls sometimes cannot checkmate introduced plants competing ferociously. The 3.15-inch- (8-centimeter-) long storksbill taproot draws, faster than crops, the soil's moisture, nitrates that deliver poisons to the digestive systems of grazing livestock and nutrients.

Aster yellows, beet curly top, peach yellow bud mosaic, strawberry green petal, tobacco yellow dwarf and vaccinium false bottom viral diseases emanate from storksbill host plants.

storksbill's flowers and leaves with linearly arrayed, stork's bill-like fruits; Blackfoot, Bingham County, southeastern Idaho: Matt Lavin, CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr

Storksbill features three-lobed embryonic leaves, called cotyledons, on hairy stalks for seedling stages and dense-haired, 3.94- to 15.75-inch- (10- to 40-centimeter-) long stems for mature plants.

The relative of garden geraniums in the Pelargonium genus and of wild geraniums in the Geranium genus grows into an annual, winter annual or biennial herb. It has a low, spreading mature growth habit whose foliage harbors dense-haired, long-stalked, toothed leaves initially and basal compound leaves, and sometimes opposite-positioned stem leaves, subsequently. Compound leaf arrangements in North American storksbill gardens involve irregular-shaped, stalkless, 0.39- 0.98-inch- (1- to 2.5-centimeter-) long leaflets whose surfaces include many short, stiff hairs.

Candelabra-like, flower-clustered inflorescences called umbels join storksbill foliage 12 weeks after seed germination, the introduced plant's reproduction means, in the soil's top 0.98 inch (2.5 centimeters).

Erodium cicutarium flowers; Har Arif, Negev, southern Israel: Mark A. Wilson (Wilson44691), Public Domain (CCO 1.0), via Wikimedia Commons

Each umbel keeps three to 12 pink flowers, 0.51 to 0.67 inches (13 to 17 millimeters) across, on 0.39- to 0.79-inch- (1- to 2-centimeter-) long stalks.

Every perfect, regular flower looks busy with five bristle-tipped, hairy sepals, with five petals and with five fertile and five infertile stamens fused at the base. A five-parted, 0.79- to 1.58-inch- (2- to 4-centimeter-) long style on the only pistil makes the March- through June-blooming flower unforgettable in North American storksbill gardens. All storksbill flowers need to nurture as fruits five crane's, heron's or stork's bill-like, long-tailed, pink-like capsules 0.79 to 1.58 inches (2 to 4 centimeters) long.

The release of as many as 250 seeds by one storksbill plant occurs when all the segmented fruit capsules called schizocarps open from the bottom upward.

storksbill's curlicued achenes; Muséum de Toulouse (MHNT Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle de la ville de Toulouse), Haute-Garonne, southwestern France: Didier Descouens, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Brown, club-shaped, 0.19-inch- (5-millimeter-) long seeds pull 0.79- to 1.18-inch- (2- to 3-centimeter-) long tails into coils when dry and push them back out when moistened.

Soil temperatures from 39.2 to 69.8 degrees Fahrenheit (4 to 21 degrees Celsius) quicken germination of seeds that possibly quit being viable after only several years. The common names alfileria, cranesbill, heron's-bill, pin clover, pingrass, pinweed, pink needle, red stem filaree, thunder flower and wild musk reference storksbill's appearance, not pushy seediness. Pushy seeding shoves storksbill, scientifically called Erodium cicutarium (heron [with] poison hemlock-like [leaves]), into weed status in Manitoba, Canada and, in the United States, in Colorado.

North American storksbill gardens trick Washington weed-designated Robert geraniums and weed designation-free Bicknell's geraniums into tolerable pushiness with storksbill since it takes weeds to tame weeds.

Bicknell's geranium (Geranium bicknellii) easily tames storksbill's range: Superior National Forest, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

fields of storksbill (Erodium cicutarium, also known as redstem filaree, Panoche Hills BLM (US Bureau of Land Management), western Fresno County, northern California; Elaine with Grey Cats, CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/elainegreycats/24971295884/

storksbill's flowers and leaves with linearly arrayed, stork's bill-like fruits; Blackfoot, Bingham County, southeastern Idaho: Matt Lavin, CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/plant_diversity/8047679412/

Erodium cicutarium flowers; Har Arif, Negev, southern Israel: Mark A. Wilson (Wilson44691), Public Domain (CCO 1.0), via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Erodium_cicutarium_Negev.JPG

storksbill's curlicued achenes; Muséum de Toulouse (MHNT Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle de la ville de Toulouse), Haute-Garonne, southwestern France: Didier Descouens, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Erodium_cicutarium_MHNT.jpg

Bicknell's geranium (Geranium bicknellii) easily tames storksbill's range: Superior National Forest, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/superiornationalforest/5097891366/

For further information:

Aiton, William. M.DCC.LXXXIX (1789). "Erodium L'Herit. Geran." Hortus Kewensis; Or, A Catalogue of the Plants Cultivated in the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew. Vol. II Octandria-Monadelphia: 414. London, UK: Printed for George Nicol, Bookseller to His Majesty.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4864832

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

"Erodium cicutarium (L.) L'Hér. ex Aiton." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/13900001