Flower Moon: May's full moon

Where the name Flower Moon comes from

The meaning of “Flower Moon” is not in doubt: May is when flowers bloom across much of North America. Both the Old Farmer’s Almanac (New Hampshire) and the Farmers’ Almanac (Maine), two separate publications, explain the name that way.

The question is who used it. The Old Farmer’s Almanac says the name was used by Algonquin and Ojibwe peoples. Indian Country Today (ICT), a Native-run news outlet, supports the Ojibwe part independently. Its list of Ojibwe moon names includes Waabigwanii-giizis, which it translates as Flower Moon. That makes May one of the few months where the popular English name lines up with a name documented from a Native source.

Other nations in the same ICT article tie May to planting. The Dakota name, Wóžupi wí, is the Planting Moon, matching the almanac’s attribution below. The Oneida name translates as “They Plant,” and the Diné (Navajo) name as Big Leaves.

Even so, the name does not belong to one “Native American calendar.” No such single calendar existed. The familiar list of twelve monthly names was compiled by almanacs from Indigenous, colonial and European traditions. The underlying Indigenous names differed by nation, region and dialect, and many named a lunar month rather than one night. The full moon names overview explains this in more detail.

Other names for May’s full moon

The Old Farmer’s Almanac gives these alternatives, each credited to a nation. We repeat the almanac’s attributions without independent confirmation.

• Budding Moon and Leaf Budding Moon: Cree.
• Egg Laying Moon and Frog Moon: Cree.
• Planting Moon: Dakota and Lakota.
• Moon of the Shedding Ponies: Oglala.

Read together, the names describe late spring: planting, ponies shedding their winter coats, and frogs and birds becoming active. Frog Moon also appears in the almanac’s April list for the Cree. Seasons do not keep to calendar months, and the same name can drift across a month boundary from one place or year to the next.

What makes the Flower Moon notable

The Flower Moon is a late-spring full moon. As summer approaches, the Sun’s path runs high and long, and the full moon, which always sits opposite the Sun, takes a low, short path across the southern sky. A late-spring full moon rises in the southeast, stays fairly low and is up for a shorter night than in winter.

May is also one of the months that can host a Blue Moon under either definition. By the modern calendar rule, a Blue Moon is a second full moon in one month, and May has 31 days. By the older seasonal rule, Sky & Telescope explains that a Blue Moon is the third of four full moons in an astronomical season, and that this only happens in February, May, August or November. The Blue Moon page covers the history of both rules. The table above flags any seasonal Blue Moon, supermoon or micromoon among the coming Flower Moons; a second full moon in May is listed on the Blue Moon page instead.

How to watch the Flower Moon

Moonrise is the moment to catch. The table above gives the time for major cities. Find a view toward the east-southeast, such as a beach, a lakeshore or an open field, and watch for the first bright edge.

At rising, the Moon looks much larger than it will an hour later. This is the Moon illusion, which NASA describes as a trick of perception. A photograph shows the Moon the same width low or high in the sky. One popular explanation compares it to the Ponzo illusion: our brains scale an object by the things around it, and on the horizon the Moon sits among trees and buildings. NASA adds that no explanation has been fully settled.

Warm May evenings are comfortable for staying out. If you want the stars and the Milky Way, though, the full moon is the wrong night. Use our city sky pages to find the darker evenings around new moon.