When does ʻŌhiʻa Lehua bloom in Hawaii?

Most often in May. Across 227 dated, research-grade observations of Metrosideros polymorpha in Hawaii, the flowering season runs roughly April to December.

Peak May In flower 227 Examined 320 State Hawaii

Flowering 227 in flower of 320 examined

63%

53%

72%

89%

91%

73%

65%

89%

60%

54%

78%

80%

Proportion of examined Metrosideros polymorpha in Hawaii in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	20	32	63%	45% to 77%
Feb	25	47	53%	39% to 67%
Mar	18	25	72%	52% to 86%
Apr	16	18	89%	67% to 97%
May	31	34	91%	77% to 97%
Jun	19	26	73%	54% to 86%
Jul	17	26	65%	46% to 81%
Aug	17	19	89%	69% to 97%
Sep	9	15	60%	36% to 80%
Oct	14	26	54%	35% to 71%
Nov	25	32	78%	61% to 89%
Dec	16	20	80%	58% to 92%

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Metrosideros polymorpha in Hawaii 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. 227 of 320 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 Hawaii found Metrosideros polymorpha in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in Hawaii, 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

Metrosideros polymorpha

ʻŌhiʻa Lehua

Sourcesevery claim on this page

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