Apple blossom, the state flower of Michigan

How to recognize it

Apple blossoms grow in clusters on apple and crabapple trees in spring, usually white tinged with pink, though some flowering crabapples are deep pink, red or purple. They are sweetly fragrant and draw honeybees, which pollinate the trees.

The 1897 resolution named the native sweet crabapple, then called Pyrus coronaria and now Malus coronaria. Its fragrant white to pinkish flowers are one to one and three-quarter inches across, with five petals around about twenty stamens, and they are followed by small, sour, yellow-green crabapples. The state flower is generally understood to mean apple blossoms in general.

Where to see it

Michigan is one of the country’s leading apple-growing states, and its orchards do especially well along the Lake Michigan shore, where the lake moderates the weather. The orchards usually bloom in early May and stay in flower until about mid-May. The Michigan Apple Committee encourages people to visit orchards during bloom season. The native crabapple grows in open woods and along forest edges.

Chosen in 1897

The legislature adopted the apple blossom by joint resolution in 1897, making Michigan the first state to choose it; Arkansas followed in 1901. The resolution cited the beauty of the orchards in bloom, the worldwide reputation of Michigan apples, and the native crabapple.

The dwarf lake iris

In 1998 Michigan added a state wildflower, and it chose one of the rarest plants in the Great Lakes region: the dwarf lake iris, Iris lacustris. It is a tiny iris, only a few inches tall, with deep blue flowers marked with orange crests, blooming from mid-May to early June. It grows nowhere in the world except along the northern shores of Lakes Michigan and Huron, on sandy and gravelly soils near the water. Most of its populations, more than 90 locations, are in Michigan, and it is listed as threatened under both state and federal law.