Erodium cicutarium.
A tannin-rich wild geranium taken as tea or tincture. The tannins bind proteins in the mouth and gut, which is the dry, puckering astringency traditional use is built around.
- Category
- Herb
What Erodium cicutarium is, and what it does.
- Does it work
- It suits people who like traditional astringent herbs and take them as a short course. Research is genuinely thin, at 288 records in Europe PMC and little of it in humans.
- How much to take
- No dose figure is on record, and there is no agreed marker to standardise on, so labels state plant weight rather than active content. Follow the preparation's own documentation.
- Time to feel it
- The astringency is immediate in the mouth. Anything beyond that mouthfeel has not been timed in people.
- The first dose
- You taste it straight away, dry and puckering. Past the mouth the first day is quiet, and any gut-level effect builds with repeated use.
- With regular use
- Weeks of daily tannins keep protein and mineral binding running in the gut lumen, which is why traditional use is a short course rather than a permanent fixture.
- How well tolerated
- Tannins can be harsh on an empty stomach and bind iron, zinc, copper and calcium in the gut. Space it a couple of hours from mineral supplements and iron-rich meals.
- How it feels
- Dry, puckering, faintly bitter, like over-steeped black tea. That mouthfeel is tannins precipitating your saliva proteins, and it is the main sensation on offer.
- The overlooked benefit
- Gut bacteria cleave its tannins to ellagic acid and then to urolithins, the same metabolites people chase from pomegranate. Those, not the tannins, are what reach your blood.
The proof, claim by claim.
These words describe the research, not the molecule's worth. Research strength is how much work stands behind one claim, and it is never a product score.
- astringent action on mucosal and salivary proteinsNarrative review
- antioxidant activity of hydrolysable tanninsIn vitro study
- inhibition of digestive proteases and amylases in the gut lumenAnimal study
- binding of divalent and trivalent minerals in the gutNarrative review
- microbial conversion of ellagitannins to urolithinsNarrative review
Why these belong in the same formula. Each row says what the basis is, from settled biochemistry through to a trial that measured the pair.
Erodium cicutarium is a tannin and flavonoid-rich member of the geranium family. When a phenolic donates a hydrogen atom to quench a radical it becomes a phenoxyl radical itself, and ascorbate can reduce it back to the active form. This recycling is standard antioxidant chemistry and applies to the plant's polyphenol fraction as a class. It is chemistry demonstrated in solution, not a clinical outcome.
Hydrolysable and condensed tannins bind non-haem iron in the gut lumen to form poorly absorbable complexes. Geranium-family herbs are notably tannin-rich, which is what gives them their astringency. Anyone taking iron for low iron status should separate it from tannin-heavy herbal preparations by a couple of hours. This is the same interaction that makes tea with meals a problem for iron uptake.
Tannins bind divalent metal cations including zinc, forming complexes that are not taken up across the intestinal wall. The effect is proportional to tannin load and is a luminal interaction rather than a systemic one. Spacing intake apart avoids it entirely. It applies to any tannin-rich botanical, not to this species uniquely.
Tannins precipitate proline-rich proteins, which is exactly why an astringent herb makes the mouth feel dry. In a formula this means a tannin-rich extract can bind protein and reduce the measurable free tannin, or complex the protein. Practically it is a formulation compatibility issue: pairing high-tannin botanicals with protein powders alters both. The interaction is well characterised in food chemistry.
Geranium-family plants carry quercetin and kaempferol glycosides alongside their tannins. Adding purified quercetin to such an extract is adding more of a compound already present rather than introducing something new. Combined intake raises total flavonoid load and shares the same glucuronidation clearance route. Read this as overlap rather than complementarity.
Traditional Western herbalism pairs astringent herbs, which tighten and dry mucosal surfaces, with demulcent herbs that coat and soothe them. Erodium sits in the astringent column and slippery elm in the demulcent one. The rationale is empirical practice rather than any described biochemistry. No controlled work exists on the pair.
Erodium cicutarium, known as stork's bill or filaree, appears in several folk traditions as an astringent applied to bleeding surfaces. Astringency is a local protein-precipitating effect on tissue, quite distinct from vitamin K's role as a cofactor for gamma-carboxylation of clotting factors. Grouping them is a shared intended use, not a shared mechanism. There is no controlled human evidence for the herb here.
Tannins bind and inhibit proteases and amylases, an effect well documented in animal feed science where tannin-rich forage reduces protein digestibility. A tannin-heavy extract taken with an enzyme supplement works against it. Separating the two by an hour or more is the straightforward answer. This is a luminal chemistry problem, not a systemic one.
Nothing specific on file for Erodium cicutarium. Match the label to the daily amount above, and tell your doctor what you take.
Not medical advice. Show the label to your pharmacist.What Erodium cicutarium actually does.
Erodium cicutarium belongs to a plant family known for hydrolysable tannins like geraniin and ellagitannins, plus flavonoid-sugar compounds related to quercetin and kaempferol.
The dry, puckering taste you get from this kind of herb is a physical effect, tannins clumping together certain proteins in your saliva.
Gut bacteria and stomach acid break these tannins down, releasing ellagic acid, which colon bacteria then turn into compounds called urolithins. it's the urolithins, not the original tannins, that show up in blood.
Tannins bind minerals like iron, zinc, copper and calcium in the gut, forming complexes that don't get absorbed. this is a general property of tannins, not specific to this plant.
Where Erodium cicutarium comes from.
Stork's bill is a small wild plant in the geranium family, common enough that many people know it as a weed. It is dried and steeped in water or alcohol to make a tea or tincture. Nobody has agreed on what to measure in it, so labels tell you how much plant went in, not what came out.
Made from a plant. What ends up in the capsule tracks the harvest, so batch testing and a stated marker matter more here than with a made molecule.
A low-growing annual of the geranium family, native to Eurasia and North Africa and now naturalised widely including across North America, where it is often treated as a weed and as forage.
Hot water pulls the hydrolysable tannins and glycosides, while ethanol-water captures the less polar flavonoids as well. The choice shifts the constituent balance of the finished extract.
Coarse filtration removes plant solids. Most preparations of this species are not purified further, since no single marker compound is the target.
There is no pharmacopoeial monograph or accepted assay marker for this species, so declarations are ratio-based rather than content-based. Botanical identity confirmation matters more here than assay, because look-alike Erodium and Geranium species are common.
Sold as loose dried herb for infusion, as a tincture, or as a capsule-ready powder.
The forms it comes in.
Problems people have reported.
Read this carefully. These are 29 voluntary, unverified reactions reported to the FDA (openFDA). The number mostly reflects how popular Erodium cicutarium is, not how risky it is. A report is not proof Erodium cicutarium caused anything. It is a signal of what to watch for, nothing more.
Source: openFDA adverse-event reports. Voluntary reporting, not an incidence rate.
FDA Disclaimer: These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Consult your healthcare provider before starting any supplement regimen.