When does Cascade Oregon-grape bloom in Oregon?

Most often in April. Across 151 dated, research-grade observations of Berberis nervosa in Oregon, the flowering season runs roughly April to May.

Peak April In flower 151 Examined 581 State Oregon

Flowering 151 in flower of 581 examined

Proportion of examined Berberis nervosa in Oregon in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 0 19 0% 0% to 17%
Feb 0 20 0% 0% to 16%
Mar 0 42 0% 0% to 8%
Apr 71 109 65% 56% to 73%
May 65 118 55% 46% to 64%
Jun 14 62 23% 14% to 34%
Jul 1 73 1% 0% to 7%
Aug 0 41 0% 0% to 9%
Sep 0 39 0% 0% to 9%
Oct 0 30 0% 0% to 11%
Nov 0 18 0% 0% to 18%
Dec 0 10 0% 0% to 28%

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Berberis nervosa in Oregon 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. 151 of 581 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 Oregon found Berberis nervosa in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in Oregon, 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 Oregon. 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.