When does brownplume wirelettuce bloom in California?

Most often in November. Across 358 dated, research-grade observations of Stephanomeria pauciflora in California, the flowering season runs roughly May to December.

Peak November In flower 358 Examined 435 State California

Flowering 358 in flower of 435 examined

75%

41%

46%

77%

94%

92%

88%

89%

92%

99%

89%

Proportion of examined Stephanomeria pauciflora in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	38	51	75%	61% to 84%
Feb	12	29	41%	26% to 59%
Mar	13	28	46%	30% to 64%
Apr	47	61	77%	65% to 86%
May	31	33	94%	80% to 98%
Jun	11	12	92%	65% to 99%
Jul	7	8	88%	53% to 98%
Aug	2	2	too few examined
Sep	8	9	89%	56% to 98%
Oct	33	36	92%	78% to 97%
Nov	83	84	99%	94% to 100%
Dec	73	82	89%	80% to 94%

Peak flowering in Nov. Each bar is the share of Stephanomeria pauciflora 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. 358 of 435 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 California found Stephanomeria pauciflora 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 pauciflora

brownplume 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.