When does Miniature Barrel Cactus bloom in Texas?

Most often in May. Across 141 dated, research-grade observations of Thelocactus setispinus in Texas, the flowering season runs roughly April to June.

Peak May In flower 141 Examined 292 State Texas

Flowering 141 in flower of 292 examined

30%

62%

76%

70%

49%

43%

Proportion of examined Thelocactus setispinus in Texas in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	0	4	too few examined
Feb	0	5	0%	0% to 43%
Mar	7	23	30%	16% to 51%
Apr	28	45	62%	48% to 75%
May	25	33	76%	59% to 87%
Jun	28	40	70%	55% to 82%
Jul	18	37	49%	33% to 64%
Aug	19	39	49%	34% to 64%
Sep	15	35	43%	28% to 59%
Oct	0	14	0%	0% to 22%
Nov	1	11	9%	2% to 38%
Dec	0	6	0%	0% to 39%

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Thelocactus setispinus 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. 141 of 292 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 Texas found Thelocactus setispinus 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

Thelocactus setispinus

Miniature Barrel Cactus

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.