When does puncture vine bloom in California?

Most often in September. Across 347 dated, research-grade observations of Tribulus terrestris in California, the flowering season runs roughly May to December.

Peak September In flower 347 Examined 552 State California

Flowering 347 in flower of 552 examined

24%

50%

14%

64%

85%

58%

75%

80%

88%

55%

65%

82%

Proportion of examined Tribulus terrestris in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	4	17	24%	10% to 47%
Feb	6	12	50%	25% to 75%
Mar	8	58	14%	7% to 25%
Apr	27	42	64%	49% to 77%
May	28	33	85%	69% to 93%
Jun	38	65	58%	46% to 70%
Jul	44	59	75%	62% to 84%
Aug	39	49	80%	66% to 89%
Sep	69	78	88%	80% to 94%
Oct	45	82	55%	44% to 65%
Nov	30	46	65%	51% to 77%
Dec	9	11	82%	52% to 95%

Peak flowering in Sep. Each bar is the share of Tribulus terrestris 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. 347 of 552 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 Tribulus terrestris 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

Tribulus terrestris

puncture vine

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.