When does Carolina horsenettle bloom in North Carolina?

Most often in June. Across 388 dated, research-grade observations of Solanum carolinense in North Carolina, the flowering season runs roughly May to August.

Peak June In flower 388 Examined 598 State North Carolina

Flowering 388 in flower of 598 examined

80%

94%

88%

89%

57%

Proportion of examined Solanum carolinense in North Carolina in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	0	10	0%	0% to 28%
Feb	0	8	0%	0% to 32%
Mar	1	11	9%	2% to 38%
Apr	0	4	too few examined
May	40	50	80%	67% to 89%
Jun	121	129	94%	88% to 97%
Jul	88	100	88%	80% to 93%
Aug	93	105	89%	81% to 93%
Sep	39	69	57%	45% to 68%
Oct	6	72	8%	4% to 17%
Nov	0	20	0%	0% to 16%
Dec	0	20	0%	0% to 16%

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Solanum carolinense in North Carolina 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. 388 of 598 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 North Carolina found Solanum carolinense in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in North Carolina, 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

Solanum carolinense

Carolina horsenettle

Sourcesevery claim on this page

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