When does bastardsage bloom in California?

Most often in September. Across 540 dated, research-grade observations of Eriogonum wrightii in California, the flowering season runs roughly July to December.

Peak September In flower 540 Examined 666 State California

Flowering 540 in flower of 666 examined

67%

24%

29%

11%

33%

79%

86%

98%

96%

94%

88%

Proportion of examined Eriogonum wrightii in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	24	36	67%	50% to 80%
Feb	5	21	24%	11% to 45%
Mar	4	14	29%	12% to 55%
Apr	2	19	11%	3% to 31%
May	0	9	0%	0% to 30%
Jun	6	18	33%	16% to 56%
Jul	52	66	79%	67% to 87%
Aug	93	108	86%	78% to 91%
Sep	101	103	98%	93% to 99%
Oct	108	113	96%	90% to 98%
Nov	77	82	94%	87% to 97%
Dec	68	77	88%	79% to 94%

Peak flowering in Sep. Each bar is the share of Eriogonum wrightii 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. 540 of 666 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 California found Eriogonum wrightii 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

Eriogonum wrightii

bastardsage

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.