When does Bitter cherry bloom in California?

Most often in May. Across 79 dated, research-grade observations of Prunus emarginata in California, the flowering season runs roughly April to June.

Peak May In flower 79 Examined 124 State California

Flowering 79 in flower of 124 examined

94%

97%

86%

43%

Proportion of examined Prunus emarginata in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	0	0	too few examined
Feb	0	0	too few examined
Mar	0	0	too few examined
Apr	16	17	94%	73% to 99%
May	33	34	97%	85% to 99%
Jun	24	28	86%	69% to 94%
Jul	6	14	43%	21% to 67%
Aug	0	21	0%	0% to 15%
Sep	0	7	0%	0% to 35%
Oct	0	3	too few examined
Nov	0	0	too few examined
Dec	0	0	too few examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Prunus emarginata 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. 79 of 124 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 6 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. 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 Prunus emarginata 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

Prunus emarginata

Bitter cherry

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.