When does European Searocket bloom in California?

Most often in May. Across 694 dated, research-grade observations of Cakile maritima in California, the flowering season runs roughly January to December.

Peak May In flower 694 Examined 723 State California

Flowering 694 in flower of 723 examined

91%

97%

96%

98%

100%

94%

96%

97%

96%

97%

96%

89%

Proportion of examined Cakile maritima in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	31	34	91%	77% to 97%
Feb	37	38	97%	87% to 100%
Mar	47	49	96%	86% to 99%
Apr	65	66	98%	92% to 100%
May	68	68	100%	95% to 100%
Jun	84	89	94%	88% to 98%
Jul	74	77	96%	89% to 99%
Aug	63	65	97%	89% to 99%
Sep	65	68	96%	88% to 98%
Oct	71	73	97%	91% to 99%
Nov	48	50	96%	87% to 99%
Dec	41	46	89%	77% to 95%

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Cakile maritima 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. 694 of 723 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 Cakile maritima 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

Cakile maritima

European Searocket

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.