Plantago maritimaL.

Sea Plantain

WFO wfo-0000486561 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Plantago maritima, photographed by James H. Thomas
fig. a James H. Thomas, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-13 / obs. 205952057
Plantago maritima, photographed by South West Scotland Environmental Information Centre
fig. b South West Scotland Environmental Information Centre, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203158121
Plantago maritima, photographed by Randal
fig. c Randal, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205170819
Plantago maritima, photographed by Grzegorz Grzejszczak
fig. d Grzegorz Grzejszczak, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 204612794
Plantago maritima, photographed by Grzegorz Grzejszczak
fig. e Grzegorz Grzejszczak, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 205490083
Plantago maritima, photographed by Zeke Marshall
fig. f Zeke Marshall, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203178770
Plantago maritima, photographed by Erin Springinotic
fig. g Erin Springinotic, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203086678
Plantago maritima, photographed by Erin Springinotic
fig. h Erin Springinotic, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202604820

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.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 589 observations

Peak flowering in Jul, from 589 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 83 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.

  • Arnoglossum gramineum Gray
  • Arnoglossum maritimum (L.) Gray
  • Planatgo serpentina Retz.
  • Plantaginella graminea Fourr.
  • Plantaginella maritima (L.) Fourr.
  • Plantago angustifolia Bubani
  • Plantago aspera Gaudin
  • Plantago beauverdii Pilg.
  • Plantago bicarinata G.Mey.
  • Plantago borealis Lange
  • Plantago borealis f. pygmaea Lange
  • Plantago canaliculata Pourr. ex Decne.
  • Plantago chottica Pomel
  • Plantago coronopus var. integralis DC.
  • Plantago decipiens Beauverd
  • Plantago decipiens Barnéoud
  • Plantago dentata Roth
  • Plantago denticulata Gaudin
  • Plantago edmondstonii Druce
  • Plantago gibbosa Raf.
  • Plantago graminea Lam.
  • Plantago graminiformis Lam.
  • Plantago halleri Rapin ex Decne.
  • Plantago halleri Schleich.

and 59 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.

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