Erodium malacoides(L.) L'Hér.

Mediterranean stork's bill

WFO wfo-0000676957 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Erodium malacoides, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. a Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-14 / obs. 198323066

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 42 botanical countries

Regions where Erodium malacoides is native: Algeria, Azores, Canary Is., Cape Verde, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Madeira, Morocco, Somalia, Sudan-South Sudan, Tunisia, Western Sahara, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Gulf States, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon-Syria, Oman, Palestine, Sinai, Tadzhikistan, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Albania, Baleares, Corse, France, Greece, Italy, Kriti, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaChadEgyptLibyaMoroccoSomaliaSudan-South SudanTunisiaWestern SaharaCyprusEast Aegean Is.Gulf StatesIranIraqLebanon-SyriaOmanPalestineSinaiTadzhikistanTranscaucasusTürkiyeTurkmenistanYemenPakistanAlbaniaCorseFranceGreeceItalyKritiKrymNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalSiciliaSpainTürkiye-in-Europe AzoresCanary Is.Cape VerdeMadeiraBalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Erodium malacoides, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Gulf States GST
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Oman OMA
Palestine PAL
Sinai SIN
Tadzhikistan TZK
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Turkmenistan TKM
Yemen YEM
Albania ALB EUROPE
Baleares BAL
Corse COR
France FRA
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Azores AZO
Canary Is. CNY
Cape Verde CVI
Chad CHA
Egypt EGY
Libya LBY
Madeira MDR
Morocco MOR
Somalia SOM
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tunisia TUN
Western Sahara WSA
Pakistan PAK ASIA-TROPICAL

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 553 in flower of 579 examined

Proportion of examined Erodium malacoides in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 60 64 94% 85% to 98%
Feb 126 130 97% 92% to 99%
Mar 130 135 96% 92% to 98%
Apr 105 110 95% 90% to 98%
May 42 45 93% 82% to 98%
Jun 14 14 100% 78% to 100%
Jul 4 5 80% 38% to 96%
Aug 11 11 100% 74% to 100%
Sep 10 10 100% 72% to 100%
Oct 17 17 100% 82% to 100%
Nov 13 15 87% 62% to 96%
Dec 21 23 91% 73% to 98%

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Erodium malacoides 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. 553 of 579 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.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 2,023 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 0.7 °C 5.7 °C 11.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.7 °C 27.6 °C 32.6 °C
Annual rainfall 337 mm 670 mm 1,089 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 4 mm 80 mm 159 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 2,023 research-grade observations of Erodium malacoides that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 27 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Erodion malachoideum St.-Lag.
  • Erodium althaeoides Jord.
  • Erodium glabellum Delile
  • Erodium glabellum Delile ex Steud.
  • Erodium malacoides f. althaeoides (Jord.) Paol.
  • Erodium malacoides f. brevirostre Maire & Sam.
  • Erodium malacoides f. laevifoveolata Maire
  • Erodium malacoides f. laevifoveolatum Maire & Weiller
  • Erodium malacoides f. microphyllum Rouy ex P.Monts.
  • Erodium malacoides f. platyphyllum Rouy ex P.Monts.
  • Erodium malacoides subsp. eumalacoides Maire
  • Erodium malacoides subvar. microphyllum
  • Erodium malacoides subvar. microphyllum Rouy
  • Erodium malacoides subvar. microphyllum Rouy
  • Erodium malacoides subvar. platyphyllum
  • Erodium malacoides subvar. platyphyllum
  • Erodium malacoides subvar. platyphyllum Rouy
  • Erodium malacoides var. abbreviatum Pérez Lara
  • Erodium malacoides var. althaeoides (Jord.) Nyman
  • Erodium malacoides var. floribundum Batt.
  • Erodium malacoides var. genuinum Rouy
  • Erodium malacoides var. macrophyllum Lange
  • Erodium malacoides var. subangulum Maire & Wilczek
  • Erodium malacoides var. tenuissimum Lapeyr.

and 3 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.