When does Creosote Bush bloom in Texas?

Most often in November. Across 125 dated, research-grade observations of Larrea tridentata in Texas, the flowering season runs roughly March to November.

Peak November In flower 125 Examined 165 State Texas

Flowering 125 in flower of 165 examined

Proportion of examined Larrea tridentata in Texas in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 2 3 too few examined
Feb 10 13 77% 50% to 92%
Mar 30 32 94% 80% to 98%
Apr 26 30 87% 70% to 95%
May 13 17 76% 53% to 90%
Jun 3 5 60% 23% to 88%
Jul 12 17 71% 47% to 87%
Aug 9 13 69% 42% to 87%
Sep 9 12 75% 47% to 91%
Oct 2 6 33% 10% to 70%
Nov 7 7 100% 65% to 100%
Dec 2 10 20% 6% to 51%

Peak flowering in Nov. Each bar is the share of Larrea tridentata in Texas 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. 125 of 165 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 Texas found Larrea tridentata in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in Texas, 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 Texas. 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.