When does ocotillo bloom in Arizona?

Most often in April. Across 438 dated, research-grade observations of Fouquieria splendens in Arizona, the flowering season runs roughly March to May.

Peak April In flower 438 Examined 725 State Arizona

Flowering 438 in flower of 725 examined

48%

41%

71%

84%

70%

48%

29%

38%

23%

39%

30%

Proportion of examined Fouquieria splendens in Arizona in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	26	54	48%	35% to 61%
Feb	23	56	41%	29% to 54%
Mar	109	154	71%	63% to 77%
Apr	161	191	84%	78% to 89%
May	62	89	70%	59% to 78%
Jun	10	21	48%	28% to 68%
Jul	2	7	29%	8% to 64%
Aug	0	11	0%	0% to 26%
Sep	5	13	38%	18% to 64%
Oct	5	22	23%	10% to 43%
Nov	12	31	39%	24% to 56%
Dec	23	76	30%	21% to 41%

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Fouquieria splendens 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. 438 of 725 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 Arizona found Fouquieria splendens 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

Fouquieria splendens

ocotillo

Sourcesevery claim on this page

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