When does Pajaro manzanita bloom in California?

Most often in January. Across 94 dated, research-grade observations of Arctostaphylos pajaroensis in California, the flowering season runs roughly January to December.

Peak January In flower 94 Examined 148 State California

Flowering 94 in flower of 148 examined

Proportion of examined Arctostaphylos pajaroensis in California in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 25 26 96% 81% to 99%
Feb 25 34 74% 57% to 85%
Mar 4 13 31% 13% to 58%
Apr 2 4 too few examined
May 1 5 20% 4% to 62%
Jun 1 6 17% 3% to 56%
Jul 2 12 17% 5% to 45%
Aug 1 2 too few examined
Sep 1 5 20% 4% to 62%
Oct 3 6 50% 19% to 81%
Nov 10 11 91% 62% to 98%
Dec 19 24 79% 60% to 91%

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Arctostaphylos pajaroensis 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. 94 of 148 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 2 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. 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 pajaroensis 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

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. 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.
  2. World Flora Online Plant List. The accepted name. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.