When does Bull Thistle bloom in New York?

Most often in August. Across 202 dated, research-grade observations of Cirsium vulgare in New York, the flowering season runs roughly August.

Peak August In flower 202 Examined 395 State New York

Flowering 202 in flower of 395 examined

28%

71%

91%

63%

55%

50%

Proportion of examined Cirsium vulgare in New York in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	0	6	0%	0% to 39%
Feb	0	4	too few examined
Mar	0	9	0%	0% to 30%
Apr	0	54	0%	0% to 7%
May	1	31	3%	1% to 16%
Jun	7	25	28%	14% to 48%
Jul	68	96	71%	61% to 79%
Aug	84	92	91%	84% to 96%
Sep	24	38	63%	47% to 77%
Oct	12	22	55%	35% to 73%
Nov	6	12	50%	25% to 75%
Dec	0	6	0%	0% to 39%

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Cirsium vulgare in New York 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. 202 of 395 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. 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 New York found Cirsium vulgare in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in New York, 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

Cirsium vulgare

Bull Thistle

Sourcesevery claim on this page

GBIF (iNaturalist Research-grade Observations). Dated flowering annotations in New York. 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.