Lotus maritimusL.

dragon's teeth

WFO wfo-0000212213 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Lotus maritimus, photographed by CorentinD
fig. a CorentinD, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-14 / obs. 208073109
Lotus maritimus, photographed by Alessia Guggisberg
fig. b Alessia Guggisberg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205177350
Lotus maritimus, photographed by Tim Johnson
fig. c Tim Johnson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205110712
Lotus maritimus, photographed by Vladimír Fuka
fig. d Vladimír Fuka, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204491253
Lotus maritimus, photographed by Elias
fig. e Elias, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195894293
Lotus maritimus, photographed by Julien Renoult
fig. f Julien Renoult, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194808387
Lotus maritimus, photographed by Naturalista
fig. g Naturalista, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 189080073
Lotus maritimus, photographed by Gabriel Mayrhofer
fig. h Gabriel Mayrhofer, CC0 1.0 / obs. 152960189

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 maritimus is native: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Austria, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Sardegna, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine AlgeriaMoroccoTunisiaTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaAustriaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkFranceGermanyHungaryItalyKrymNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandUkraine Sardegna
Native distribution of Lotus maritimus, 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
Austria AUT
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
France FRA
Germany GER
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
Transcaucasus TCS ASIA-TEMPERATE
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 739 in flower of 766 examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Lotus maritimus 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. 739 of 766 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 6 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 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.

  • Lotus bivonaeus Bertol.
  • Lotus bouteloui Nyman
  • Lotus maritima L.
  • Lotus pratensis Mill.
  • Lotus siliquosus f. maritimus (L.) Juel
  • Lotus siliquosus subsp. bivonaeus (Bertol.) Arcang.
  • Lotus siliquosus subsp. bivoneus (Guss.) Arcang.
  • Lotus siliquosus subsp. maritimus (L.) Arcang.
  • Lotus siliquosus var. glaber Klett & Richt.
  • Lotus siliquosus var. maritimus (L.) DC.
  • Lotus siliquosus var. maritimus (L.) Hartm.
  • Scandalida flava Medik.
  • Scandalida maritima (L.) Scop.
  • Tetragonolobus bivonaeus (Guss.) Ces., Pass. & Gibelli
  • Tetragonolobus bouteloui Willk.
  • Tetragonolobus glaucus Dulac
  • Tetragonolobus maritimus (L.) Roth
  • Tetragonolobus maritimus f. salinus (Schur) Soó
  • Tetragonolobus maritimus var. hirsutus (Willk.) Muñoz Garm. & Pedrol
  • Tetragonolobus prostratus Moench
  • Tetragonolobus scandalida Scop.
  • Tetragonolobus siliquosus var. aureus Maire
  • Tetragonolobus siliquosus var. bicolor Maire
  • Tetragonolobus siliquosus var. hirsutus Willk.

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.