When does Walter's groundcherry bloom in Florida?

Most often in March. Across 290 dated, research-grade observations of Physalis walteri in Florida, the flowering season runs roughly February to December.

Peak March In flower 290 Examined 452 State Florida

Flowering 290 in flower of 452 examined

55%

81%

83%

71%

48%

61%

43%

33%

61%

70%

68%

Proportion of examined Physalis walteri in Florida in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	24	44	55%	40% to 68%
Feb	35	43	81%	67% to 90%
Mar	64	77	83%	73% to 90%
Apr	45	63	71%	59% to 81%
May	33	69	48%	36% to 59%
Jun	14	29	48%	31% to 66%
Jul	14	23	61%	41% to 78%
Aug	6	14	43%	21% to 67%
Sep	5	15	33%	15% to 58%
Oct	11	18	61%	39% to 80%
Nov	14	20	70%	48% to 85%
Dec	25	37	68%	51% to 80%

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Physalis walteri 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. 290 of 452 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 Florida found Physalis walteri 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

Physalis walteri

Walter's groundcherry

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.