When does American white waterlily bloom in Florida?

Most often in July. Across 253 dated, research-grade observations of Nymphaea odorata in Florida, the flowering season runs roughly April to November.

Peak July In flower 253 Examined 308 State Florida

Flowering 253 in flower of 308 examined

40%

72%

95%

83%

79%

100%

70%

91%

80%

89%

73%

Proportion of examined Nymphaea odorata in Florida in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	2	4	too few examined
Feb	4	10	40%	17% to 69%
Mar	28	39	72%	56% to 83%
Apr	55	58	95%	86% to 98%
May	33	40	83%	68% to 91%
Jun	22	28	79%	60% to 90%
Jul	17	17	100%	82% to 100%
Aug	14	20	70%	48% to 85%
Sep	21	23	91%	73% to 98%
Oct	24	30	80%	63% to 91%
Nov	25	28	89%	73% to 96%
Dec	8	11	73%	43% to 90%

Peak flowering in Jul. Each bar is the share of Nymphaea odorata in Florida 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. 253 of 308 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 Florida found Nymphaea odorata in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in Florida, 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

Nymphaea odorata

American white waterlily

Sourcesevery claim on this page

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