When does hairy pagoda-plant bloom in Illinois?

Most often in July. Across 167 dated, research-grade observations of Blephilia hirsuta in Illinois, the flowering season runs roughly July to August.

Peak July In flower 167 Examined 245 State Illinois

Flowering 167 in flower of 245 examined

Proportion of examined Blephilia hirsuta in Illinois in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 0 5 0% 0% to 43%
Feb 0 8 0% 0% to 32%
Mar 0 10 0% 0% to 28%
Apr 0 9 0% 0% to 30%
May 1 7 14% 3% to 51%
Jun 17 32 53% 36% to 69%
Jul 110 110 100% 97% to 100%
Aug 35 40 88% 74% to 95%
Sep 2 9 22% 6% to 55%
Oct 2 7 29% 8% to 64%
Nov 0 4 too few examined
Dec 0 4 too few examined

Peak flowering in Jul. Each bar is the share of Blephilia hirsuta in Illinois 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. 167 of 245 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 Illinois found Blephilia hirsuta in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in Illinois, 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 Illinois. 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.