When does laurel sumac bloom in California?

Most often in July. Across 2,073 dated, research-grade observations of Malosma laurina in California, the flowering season runs roughly July.

Peak July In flower 2,073 Examined 13,383 State California

Flowering 2,073 in flower of 13,383 examined

10%

46%

67%

35%

13%

Proportion of examined Malosma laurina in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	3	852	0%	0% to 1%
Feb	1	913	0%	0% to 1%
Mar	1	1174	0%	0% to 0%
Apr	15	1768	1%	1% to 1%
May	125	1202	10%	9% to 12%
Jun	626	1369	46%	43% to 48%
Jul	783	1172	67%	64% to 69%
Aug	291	842	35%	31% to 38%
Sep	143	1142	13%	11% to 15%
Oct	56	1054	5%	4% to 7%
Nov	20	1050	2%	1% to 3%
Dec	9	845	1%	1% to 2%

Peak flowering in Jul. Each bar is the share of Malosma laurina 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. 2,073 of 13,383 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 Malosma laurina 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

Malosma laurina

laurel sumac

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.