When does musk stork's-bill bloom in California?

Most often in June. Across 4,241 dated, research-grade observations of Erodium moschatum in California, the flowering season runs roughly March to August.

Peak June In flower 4,241 Examined 5,809 State California

Flowering 4,241 in flower of 5,809 examined

37%

61%

77%

83%

89%

95%

92%

91%

70%

47%

38%

22%

Proportion of examined Erodium moschatum in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	168	452	37%	33% to 42%
Feb	459	748	61%	58% to 65%
Mar	1383	1785	77%	75% to 79%
Apr	1480	1784	83%	81% to 85%
May	437	491	89%	86% to 91%
Jun	114	120	95%	90% to 98%
Jul	56	61	92%	82% to 96%
Aug	31	34	91%	77% to 97%
Sep	21	30	70%	52% to 83%
Oct	23	49	47%	34% to 61%
Nov	29	77	38%	28% to 49%
Dec	40	178	22%	17% to 29%

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Erodium moschatum 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. 4,241 of 5,809 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 moschatum 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 moschatum

musk 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.