What is the difference between Geranium and Erodium? Learn to tell them apart correctly
The names Geranium and Erodium are very similar, but they are different plants, and many people still cannot tell the difference between the two. Below, let us look at the differences between Geranium and Erodium.
1. Introduction to Erodium
Erodium comes from the aerial parts of plants in the Geraniaceae family, either Erodium stephanianum or Erodium, harvested in summer and autumn. Those with many leaves, green color, and a strong aromatic scent are considered best.
The stems and leaves are square-columnar, slender and twisted, 10-20 cm long, 1-2 mm in diameter, with a yellow-green or purplish-red surface, bearing longitudinal ridges and short soft hairs, with adventitious roots at the nodes; brittle in texture, easy to break, and the cross-section is often hollow.
The leaves are opposite, grayish-green or greenish-brown, mostly shrunken, and when flattened appear kidney-shaped or nearly heart-shaped, 1-3 cm long, 1.5-3 cm wide, with rounded teeth along the margin; the petioles are slender, 4-7 cm long. The verticillaster inflorescences are axillary, and the corolla is pale blue or purple, two-lipped, up to 2 cm long. When rubbed, it is aromatic, with a slightly bitter taste.
2. Introduction to Geranium
A perennial herb, 30-50 cm tall. The rhizome is upright, thick and robust, with clustered fibrous slender adventitious roots, the upper part surrounded by remnants of basal stipules. The stem is erect, solitary, with ridged grooves, falsely dichotomously branched, covered with reflexed short soft hairs, sometimes mixed with spreading glandular hairs on the upper part.
Basal and cauline leaves are opposite; the stipules are ovate-triangular or narrowly lanceolate in the upper part, 5-8 mm long, 1-3 mm wide; the basal leaves and lower cauline leaves have long petioles, the petiole length being 2-3 times that of the leaf blade, covered with reflexed short soft hairs; the petioles of the upper cauline leaves gradually shorten or are nearly sessile; the basal leaf blades are round-kidney-shaped, 3-5 cm long, 4-9 cm wide, deeply 5-parted to 2/3 of the way, the lobes obovate-cuneate, entire in the lower part, irregularly toothed in the upper part; the cauline leaves are 3-parted to 3/5 of the way, the lobes long-ovate or broadly cuneate, shallowly toothed in the upper part, with a long acuminate apex, the surface covered with short appressed hairs, and the underside along the veins covered with short rough hairs.
Both can treat rheumatic arthralgia, but Geranium can also treat numbness, contracture, diarrhea, and dysentery; while Erodium can also fight viruses and has liver-protecting and antibacterial effects. Therefore, they are not the same traditional Chinese medicine, and care should be taken not to confuse them in practical use.