When does Chain-fruit Cholla bloom in Arizona?

Most often in July. Across 71 dated, research-grade observations of Cylindropuntia fulgida in Arizona, the flowering season runs roughly July to August.

Peak July In flower 71 Examined 211 State Arizona

Flowering 71 in flower of 211 examined

14%

64%

59%

81%

67%

60%

14%

Proportion of examined Cylindropuntia fulgida in Arizona in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	0	19	0%	0% to 17%
Feb	0	15	0%	0% to 20%
Mar	0	14	0%	0% to 22%
Apr	3	22	14%	5% to 33%
May	18	28	64%	46% to 79%
Jun	13	22	59%	39% to 77%
Jul	22	27	81%	63% to 92%
Aug	8	12	67%	39% to 86%
Sep	6	10	60%	31% to 83%
Oct	1	7	14%	3% to 51%
Nov	0	7	0%	0% to 35%
Dec	0	28	0%	0% to 12%

Peak flowering in Jul. Each bar is the share of Cylindropuntia fulgida in Arizona 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. 71 of 211 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 Arizona found Cylindropuntia fulgida in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in Arizona, 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

Cylindropuntia fulgida

Chain-fruit Cholla

Sourcesevery claim on this page

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