When does glossyleaf manzanita bloom in California?

Most often in April. Across 477 dated, research-grade observations of Arctostaphylos nummularia in California, the flowering season runs roughly January to May.

Peak April In flower 477 Examined 629 State California

Flowering 477 in flower of 629 examined

86%

90%

96%

100%

84%

40%

48%

33%

40%

36%

58%

Proportion of examined Arctostaphylos nummularia in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	99	115	86%	79% to 91%
Feb	100	111	90%	83% to 94%
Mar	91	95	96%	90% to 98%
Apr	48	48	100%	93% to 100%
May	48	57	84%	73% to 91%
Jun	8	20	40%	22% to 61%
Jul	14	29	48%	31% to 66%
Aug	1	14	7%	1% to 31%
Sep	2	6	33%	10% to 70%
Oct	4	10	40%	17% to 69%
Nov	16	45	36%	23% to 50%
Dec	46	79	58%	47% to 68%

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Arctostaphylos nummularia in California 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. 477 of 629 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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.wt38fd.

What this is, and what it is not

This is a record of when people in California found Arctostaphylos nummularia in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in California, so it is not the species’ global average dragged onto a map: the same plant flowers on different dates in different places, and that is the entire point of the page.

It will not tell you what your particular plant will do this year. Bloom time moves with the season, with altitude, and with the weather, and a warm February pulls everything forward. We publish the distribution and the sample size, and we refuse to draw a month that too few people examined.

The plant

Arctostaphylos nummularia

glossyleaf manzanita

Sourcesevery claim on this page

GBIF (iNaturalist Research-grade Observations). Dated flowering annotations in California. Every record achieved iNaturalist quality grade Research, which is applied upstream at export. 10.15468/dl.wt38fd. Retrieved 2026-07-14.
World Flora Online Plant List. The accepted name. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.