When does Mission Mallow bloom in California?

Most often in May. Across 748 dated, research-grade observations of Malva assurgentiflora in California, the flowering season runs roughly February to December.

Peak May In flower 748 Examined 832 State California

Flowering 748 in flower of 832 examined

74%

90%

89%

91%

96%

93%

92%

95%

87%

88%

89%

81%

Proportion of examined Malva assurgentiflora in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	32	43	74%	60% to 85%
Feb	38	42	90%	78% to 96%
Mar	48	54	89%	78% to 95%
Apr	112	123	91%	85% to 95%
May	81	84	96%	90% to 99%
Jun	94	101	93%	86% to 97%
Jul	61	66	92%	83% to 97%
Aug	60	63	95%	87% to 98%
Sep	78	90	87%	78% to 92%
Oct	61	69	88%	79% to 94%
Nov	49	55	89%	78% to 95%
Dec	34	42	81%	67% to 90%

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Malva assurgentiflora 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. 748 of 832 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 Malva assurgentiflora 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

Malva assurgentiflora

Mission Mallow

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.