When does shaggyfruit pepperweed bloom in California?

Most often in February. Across 389 dated, research-grade observations of Lepidium lasiocarpum in California, the flowering season runs roughly February to March.

Peak February In flower 389 Examined 577 State California

Flowering 389 in flower of 577 examined

65%

86%

73%

55%

17%

20%

50%

54%

Proportion of examined Lepidium lasiocarpum in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	26	40	65%	50% to 78%
Feb	118	138	86%	79% to 90%
Mar	174	237	73%	67% to 79%
Apr	52	94	55%	45% to 65%
May	5	29	17%	8% to 35%
Jun	1	3	too few examined
Jul	0	0	too few examined
Aug	0	0	too few examined
Sep	0	8	0%	0% to 32%
Oct	1	5	20%	4% to 62%
Nov	5	10	50%	24% to 76%
Dec	7	13	54%	29% to 77%

Peak flowering in Feb. Each bar is the share of Lepidium lasiocarpum 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. 389 of 577 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 3 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. 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 Lepidium lasiocarpum 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

Lepidium lasiocarpum

shaggyfruit pepperweed

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.