When does buckwheat tree bloom in Mississippi?

Most often in March. Across 102 dated, research-grade observations of Cliftonia monophylla in Mississippi, the flowering season runs roughly March to April.

Peak March In flower 102 Examined 154 State Mississippi

Flowering 102 in flower of 154 examined

60%

95%

77%

Proportion of examined Cliftonia monophylla in Mississippi in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	1	2	too few examined
Feb	15	25	60%	41% to 77%
Mar	76	80	95%	88% to 98%
Apr	10	13	77%	50% to 92%
May	0	5	0%	0% to 43%
Jun	0	6	0%	0% to 39%
Jul	0	5	0%	0% to 43%
Aug	0	5	0%	0% to 43%
Sep	0	2	too few examined
Oct	0	3	too few examined
Nov	0	5	0%	0% to 43%
Dec	0	3	too few examined

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Cliftonia monophylla in Mississippi 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. 102 of 154 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 4 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 Mississippi found Cliftonia monophylla in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in Mississippi, 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

Cliftonia monophylla

buckwheat tree

Sourcesevery claim on this page

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