Short to medium plant with sticky hairs, smelling of musk. Leaves pinnate with oval toothed leaflets. Flowers pinky-purple or violet, large 16 to 24 mm in umbels of 5 to 12.

Common Stork's-bill, Erodium cicutarium

Either obtain confirmation from a County Recorder before submitting a record, or submit detailed images showing key features.  We recommend that you take and retain a specimen; the County Recorder may wish to see this for confirmation. 

Often coastal or on waste ground.

Flowers May to July.

Annual or biennial.

Widespread but very local in England and Wales where it is most frequent in coastal regions.

Rare in Leicestershire and Rutland.  The Fosse Park record of April 2015 was the first time this plant had been found in VC55 since the late 1970s.

In the Flora of Leicestershire (Primavesi & Evans, 1988) it was found in only 1 of the 617 tetrads, and was not recorded in the Flora of Rutland (Messenger, 1971).

In the VC55 checklist (Jeeves, 2011) it is listed as Alien (archaeophyte), with no recent record.

It was on the former 2011 Rare Plant REgister 9Jeeves 2011) but is not on the current VC55 Rare Plant Register (Hall & Woodward, 2022); several recent records are noted in this document, all likely to have been introduced in imported building materials