When does Wishbone Bush bloom in California?

Most often in June. Across 1,246 dated, research-grade observations of Mirabilis laevis in California, the flowering season runs roughly March to October.

Peak June In flower 1,246 Examined 1,709 State California

Flowering 1,246 in flower of 1,709 examined

45%

70%

81%

84%

88%

90%

71%

51%

75%

57%

45%

Proportion of examined Mirabilis laevis in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	75	166	45%	38% to 53%
Feb	202	288	70%	65% to 75%
Mar	424	526	81%	77% to 84%
Apr	242	287	84%	80% to 88%
May	119	135	88%	82% to 93%
Jun	27	30	90%	74% to 97%
Jul	3	4	too few examined
Aug	10	14	71%	45% to 88%
Sep	23	45	51%	37% to 65%
Oct	43	57	75%	63% to 85%
Nov	33	58	57%	44% to 69%
Dec	45	99	45%	36% to 55%

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Mirabilis laevis 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. 1,246 of 1,709 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. 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 Mirabilis laevis 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

Mirabilis laevis

Wishbone Bush

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.