Erodium botrys

Big heron bill

Family: Geraniaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Big heron bill is a naturalized annual found in the California Floristic Province in dry, open or disturbed sites at elevations below 1,000 meters. Flowering from March to July, this plant produces delicate pink flowers with petals slightly longer than sepals. Growing with prostrate to ascending stems 10 to 90 centimeters long that are short-hairy, it spreads across the ground in a loose, sprawling manner. Its leaves are deeply lobed with segments 8 to 10 millimeters wide, ranging from 3 to 15 centimeters long, with an ovate to oblong shape and sparse short hairs along the veins. The plant's distinctive fruit develops a style column 5 to 12 centimeters long, creating a unique beak-like structure characteristic of its genus.

Habitat: Dry, open or disturbed sites

Bloom period: Mar-Jul

Elevation: < 1000 m

Bioregions: CA-FP

California counties: Humboldt, Kern, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, Ventura, Imperial, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Orange, San Bernardino, Marin, Fresno, Merced, Napa, Madera, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, San Benito, San Mateo, San Francisco, Monterey, Colusa, San Diego, Riverside, Tulare, Butte, Nevada, Amador, Sutter, Calaveras, El Dorado, Lake, San Joaquin, Placer, Yolo, Yuba, Contra Costa, Solano, Sonoma, Tehama, Glenn, Shasta, Stanislaus, Mariposa, Mendocino, Alameda, Tuolumne, Trinity

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.