When does fourleaf vetch bloom in Florida?

Most often in January. Across 92 dated, research-grade observations of Vicia acutifolia in Florida, the flowering season runs roughly January to April.

Peak January In flower 92 Examined 99 State Florida

Flowering 92 in flower of 99 examined

Proportion of examined Vicia acutifolia in Florida in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 11 11 100% 74% to 100%
Feb 23 24 96% 80% to 99%
Mar 41 44 93% 82% to 98%
Apr 9 9 100% 70% to 100%
May 3 3 too few examined
Jun 0 1 too few examined
Jul 0 0 too few examined
Aug 0 0 too few examined
Sep 1 1 too few examined
Oct 1 1 too few examined
Nov 2 2 too few examined
Dec 1 3 too few examined

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Vicia acutifolia in Florida 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. 92 of 99 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 8 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 Florida found Vicia acutifolia in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in Florida, 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

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. GBIF (iNaturalist Research-grade Observations). Dated flowering annotations in Florida. Every record achieved iNaturalist quality grade Research, which is applied upstream at export. 10.15468/dl.wt38fd. Retrieved 2026-07-14.
  2. World Flora Online Plant List. The accepted name. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.