When does Indian tobacco bloom in North Carolina?

Most often in August. Across 145 dated, research-grade observations of Lobelia inflata in North Carolina, the flowering season runs roughly July to September.

Peak August In flower 145 Examined 168 State North Carolina

Flowering 145 in flower of 168 examined

98%

81%

55%

57%

Proportion of examined Lobelia inflata in North Carolina in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	0	1	too few examined
Feb	0	0	too few examined
Mar	0	0	too few examined
Apr	0	0	too few examined
May	0	3	too few examined
Jun	2	2	too few examined
Jul	51	52	98%	90% to 100%
Aug	59	60	98%	91% to 100%
Sep	17	21	81%	60% to 92%
Oct	12	22	55%	35% to 73%
Nov	4	7	57%	25% to 84%
Dec	0	0	too few examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Lobelia inflata in North Carolina 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. 145 of 168 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 7 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 North Carolina found Lobelia inflata in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in North Carolina, 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

Lobelia inflata

Indian tobacco

Sourcesevery claim on this page

GBIF (iNaturalist Research-grade Observations). Dated flowering annotations in North Carolina. 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.