When does smallseed sandmat bloom in California?

Most often in May. Across 334 dated, research-grade observations of Euphorbia polycarpa in California, the flowering season runs roughly February to November.

Peak May In flower 334 Examined 386 State California

Flowering 334 in flower of 386 examined

78%

84%

87%

96%

100%

80%

100%

85%

78%

Proportion of examined Euphorbia polycarpa in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	50	64	78%	67% to 87%
Feb	56	67	84%	73% to 91%
Mar	75	86	87%	79% to 93%
Apr	47	49	96%	86% to 99%
May	19	19	100%	83% to 100%
Jun	4	5	80%	38% to 96%
Jul	7	7	100%	65% to 100%
Aug	8	8	100%	68% to 100%
Sep	10	10	100%	72% to 100%
Oct	9	9	100%	70% to 100%
Nov	11	13	85%	58% to 96%
Dec	38	49	78%	64% to 87%

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Euphorbia polycarpa 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. 334 of 386 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 Euphorbia polycarpa 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

Euphorbia polycarpa

smallseed sandmat

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.