When does tree cholla bloom in New Mexico?

Most often in June. Across 100 dated, research-grade observations of Cylindropuntia imbricata in New Mexico, the flowering season runs roughly June to July.

Peak June In flower 100 Examined 247 State New Mexico

Flowering 100 in flower of 247 examined

16%

51%

75%

71%

28%

24%

25%

Proportion of examined Cylindropuntia imbricata in New Mexico in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	0	8	0%	0% to 32%
Feb	0	10	0%	0% to 28%
Mar	0	13	0%	0% to 23%
Apr	4	25	16%	6% to 35%
May	26	51	51%	38% to 64%
Jun	42	56	75%	62% to 84%
Jul	17	24	71%	51% to 85%
Aug	5	18	28%	13% to 51%
Sep	4	17	24%	10% to 47%
Oct	2	8	25%	7% to 59%
Nov	0	9	0%	0% to 30%
Dec	0	8	0%	0% to 32%

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Cylindropuntia imbricata in New Mexico 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. 100 of 247 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 New Mexico found Cylindropuntia imbricata in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in New Mexico, 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 imbricata

tree cholla

Sourcesevery claim on this page

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