When does Sweetbush bloom in California?

Most often in May. Across 1,218 dated, research-grade observations of Bebbia juncea in California, the flowering season runs roughly February to November.

Peak May In flower 1,218 Examined 1,767 State California

Flowering 1,218 in flower of 1,767 examined

65%

75%

65%

80%

92%

76%

75%

71%

47%

83%

74%

57%

Proportion of examined Bebbia juncea in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	183	283	65%	59% to 70%
Feb	158	212	75%	68% to 80%
Mar	187	287	65%	59% to 70%
Apr	133	166	80%	73% to 85%
May	69	75	92%	84% to 96%
Jun	19	25	76%	57% to 89%
Jul	12	16	75%	51% to 90%
Aug	10	14	71%	45% to 88%
Sep	26	55	47%	35% to 60%
Oct	96	115	83%	76% to 89%
Nov	121	164	74%	67% to 80%
Dec	204	355	57%	52% to 63%

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Bebbia juncea 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. 1,218 of 1,767 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 Bebbia juncea 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

Bebbia juncea

Sweetbush

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.