When does Sacred Datura bloom in Arizona?

Most often in August. Across 199 dated, research-grade observations of Datura wrightii in Arizona, the flowering season runs roughly May to August.

Peak August In flower 199 Examined 292 State Arizona

Flowering 199 in flower of 292 examined

Proportion of examined Datura wrightii in Arizona in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 1 5 20% 4% to 62%
Feb 0 0 too few examined
Mar 0 6 0% 0% to 39%
Apr 18 26 69% 50% to 84%
May 47 53 89% 77% to 95%
Jun 26 42 62% 47% to 75%
Jul 19 31 61% 44% to 76%
Aug 36 39 92% 80% to 97%
Sep 28 39 72% 56% to 83%
Oct 14 28 50% 33% to 67%
Nov 10 19 53% 32% to 73%
Dec 0 4 too few examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Datura wrightii 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. 199 of 292 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 2 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 Arizona found Datura wrightii 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

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. 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.
  2. World Flora Online Plant List. The accepted name. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.