Lotus edulisL.

WFO wfo-0000212191 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Lotus edulis, photographed by Tim Johnson
fig. a Tim Johnson, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-14 / obs. 197603759
Lotus edulis, photographed by Karim Haddad
fig. b Karim Haddad, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 119503736
Lotus edulis, photographed by Eleftherios Katsillis
fig. c Eleftherios Katsillis, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 118253926
Lotus edulis, photographed by Eleftherios Katsillis
fig. d Eleftherios Katsillis, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 115650513
Lotus edulis, photographed by Tim Johnson
fig. e Tim Johnson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 136223758
Lotus edulis, photographed by Karim Haddad
fig. f Karim Haddad, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 141006170
Lotus edulis, photographed by Karim Haddad
fig. g Karim Haddad, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 117646035
Lotus edulis, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. h Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 35584563

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 23 botanical countries

Regions where Lotus edulis is native: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Lebanon-Syria, Palestine, Türkiye, Albania, Baleares, Corse, France, Greece, Italy, Kriti, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaEgyptLibyaMoroccoTunisiaCyprusEast Aegean Is.Lebanon-SyriaPalestineTürkiyeAlbaniaCorseFranceGreeceItalyKritiNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalSiciliaSpainTürkiye-in-Europe BalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Lotus edulis, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Baleares BAL
Corse COR
France FRA
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Egypt EGY
Libya LBY
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Palestine PAL
Türkiye TUR

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 37 in flower of 44 examined

Peak flowering in Feb. Each bar is the share of Lotus edulis 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. 37 of 44 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 9 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. 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.

Also published as 6 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.

  • Krokeria oligoceratos Moench
  • Lotus cervinus Pourr. ex Willk. & Lange
  • Lotus edulis var. brachycarpus Rouy
  • Lotus edulis var. subannularis Rouy
  • Lotus edulus L.
  • Mullaghera edulis (L.) Bubani

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. 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.