answer: if there are flowers, it's in the flowering stage. What people call "preflowers" are still the same as all the other flowers, it's just that they show up first and from that you can identify the sex of your plant. SOME (i emphasize, SOME) plants will produce "preflowers" throughout the vegetative state even though they aren't actually flowering but they will be small and you usually wont see more than one show up on a node. This has only happened to me on feminized seeds. If your plant is outdoors it should automatically set flower due to the shortening of the days. You can google the length of day in your area and get an idea from that about what time your plants outdoors will start flowering. goodluck with the ladies!