When does Mediterranean Stork's-bill bloom in California?

Most often in August. Across 5,318 dated, research-grade observations of Erodium botrys in California, the flowering season runs roughly February to September.

Peak August In flower 5,318 Examined 5,656 State California

Flowering 5,318 in flower of 5,656 examined

69%

87%

95%

94%

95%

98%

100%

93%

79%

39%

17%

Proportion of examined Erodium botrys in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	22	32	69%	51% to 82%
Feb	153	176	87%	81% to 91%
Mar	1236	1307	95%	93% to 96%
Apr	2336	2480	94%	93% to 95%
May	896	942	95%	94% to 96%
Jun	397	405	98%	96% to 99%
Jul	179	183	98%	95% to 99%
Aug	48	48	100%	93% to 100%
Sep	26	28	93%	77% to 98%
Oct	15	19	79%	57% to 91%
Nov	7	18	39%	20% to 61%
Dec	3	18	17%	6% to 39%

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Erodium botrys in California observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 5,318 of 5,656 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.wt38fd.

What this is, and what it is not

This is a record of when people in California found Erodium botrys in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in California, so it is not the species’ global average dragged onto a map: the same plant flowers on different dates in different places, and that is the entire point of the page.

It will not tell you what your particular plant will do this year. Bloom time moves with the season, with altitude, and with the weather, and a warm February pulls everything forward. We publish the distribution and the sample size, and we refuse to draw a month that too few people examined.

The plant

Erodium botrys

Mediterranean Stork's-bill

Sourcesevery claim on this page

GBIF (iNaturalist Research-grade Observations). Dated flowering annotations in California. Every record achieved iNaturalist quality grade Research, which is applied upstream at export. 10.15468/dl.wt38fd. Retrieved 2026-07-14.
World Flora Online Plant List. The accepted name. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.