When does whispering bells bloom in California?

Most often in May. Across 1,675 dated, research-grade observations of Emmenanthe penduliflora in California, the flowering season runs roughly February to August.

Peak May In flower 1,675 Examined 1,920 State California

Flowering 1,675 in flower of 1,920 examined

68%

81%

90%

89%

97%

92%

83%

80%

56%

57%

68%

Proportion of examined Emmenanthe penduliflora in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	54	80	68%	57% to 77%
Feb	240	298	81%	76% to 85%
Mar	636	710	90%	87% to 92%
Apr	432	486	89%	86% to 91%
May	187	193	97%	93% to 99%
Jun	72	78	92%	84% to 96%
Jul	20	24	83%	64% to 93%
Aug	4	5	80%	38% to 96%
Sep	2	2	too few examined
Oct	5	9	56%	27% to 81%
Nov	4	7	57%	25% to 84%
Dec	19	28	68%	49% to 82%

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Emmenanthe penduliflora 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. 1,675 of 1,920 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. 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 Emmenanthe penduliflora 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

Emmenanthe penduliflora

whispering bells

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.