When does Bladderpod bloom in California?

Most often in March. Across 2,659 dated, research-grade observations of Cleomella arborea in California, the flowering season runs roughly January to December.

Peak March In flower 2,659 Examined 3,069 State California

Flowering 2,659 in flower of 3,069 examined

93%

95%

96%

90%

82%

73%

77%

67%

49%

62%

84%

90%

Proportion of examined Cleomella arborea in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	425	459	93%	90% to 95%
Feb	466	490	95%	93% to 97%
Mar	495	518	96%	93% to 97%
Apr	356	395	90%	87% to 93%
May	146	179	82%	75% to 87%
Jun	60	82	73%	63% to 82%
Jul	79	102	77%	68% to 84%
Aug	85	127	67%	58% to 75%
Sep	66	134	49%	41% to 58%
Oct	77	124	62%	53% to 70%
Nov	135	161	84%	77% to 89%
Dec	269	298	90%	86% to 93%

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Cleomella arborea 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. 2,659 of 3,069 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 Cleomella arborea 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

Cleomella arborea

Bladderpod

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.