When does prickly sowthistle bloom in Texas?

Most often in March. Across 136 dated, research-grade observations of Sonchus asper in Texas, the flowering season runs roughly March to December.

Peak March In flower 136 Examined 198 State Texas

Flowering 136 in flower of 198 examined

57%

52%

77%

73%

76%

60%

70%

67%

Proportion of examined Sonchus asper in Texas in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	12	21	57%	37% to 76%
Feb	11	21	52%	32% to 72%
Mar	33	43	77%	62% to 87%
Apr	44	60	73%	61% to 83%
May	16	21	76%	55% to 89%
Jun	3	5	60%	23% to 88%
Jul	0	0	too few examined
Aug	1	2	too few examined
Sep	0	1	too few examined
Oct	3	5	60%	23% to 88%
Nov	7	10	70%	40% to 89%
Dec	6	9	67%	35% to 88%

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Sonchus asper in Texas 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. 136 of 198 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 3 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 Texas found Sonchus asper in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in Texas, 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

Sonchus asper

prickly sowthistle

Sourcesevery claim on this page

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