When does small wirelettuce bloom in California?

Most often in August. Across 307 dated, research-grade observations of Stephanomeria exigua in California, the flowering season runs roughly January to December.

Peak August In flower 307 Examined 336 State California

Flowering 307 in flower of 336 examined

83%

67%

84%

86%

88%

93%

91%

100%

98%

100%

Proportion of examined Stephanomeria exigua in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	5	6	83%	44% to 97%
Feb	4	6	67%	30% to 90%
Mar	21	25	84%	65% to 94%
Apr	51	59	86%	75% to 93%
May	72	82	88%	79% to 93%
Jun	25	27	93%	77% to 98%
Jul	10	11	91%	62% to 98%
Aug	17	17	100%	82% to 100%
Sep	39	40	98%	87% to 100%
Oct	33	33	100%	90% to 100%
Nov	18	18	100%	82% to 100%
Dec	12	12	100%	76% to 100%

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Stephanomeria exigua 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. 307 of 336 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 California found Stephanomeria exigua 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

Stephanomeria exigua

small wirelettuce

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.