Mountain laurel, the state flower of Pennsylvania

How to recognize it

Mountain laurel is an evergreen shrub, usually 7 to 10 feet tall and slow-growing, though in the Appalachians it occasionally reaches the size of a small tree. Its leathery, glossy leaves are 2 to 5 inches long, dark green above and yellow-green below. The flowers come in clusters, each blossom about an inch across, cup-shaped and five-sided like a small star or parasol, white to pink with purple-red markings.

The flowers have a trick. Their stamens are bent back under tension, and when a bumblebee works the flower they snap free and fling pollen onto the underside of the bee.

Where it grows

Mountain laurel is native to eastern North America, from southern Maine to Louisiana and northern Florida. It grows in all 67 Pennsylvania counties, in acidic woods, on rocky slopes and along woodland edges, sometimes forming thickets so dense that woodsmen called them “laurel hells.”

Where to see it

Look for it on forested hillsides anywhere in the state in June; it blooms from late May to late June, peaking around mid-June. Wellsboro, in Tioga County, celebrates with the Pennsylvania State Laurel Festival every June.

Poisonous, but not protected

All parts of the mountain laurel are poisonous to people and livestock if eaten. Contrary to folklore, picking the blossoms is not illegal in Pennsylvania, though removing plants from someone’s land without permission is.

The state flower since 1933

In the 1920s about 20 million pounds of laurel foliage a year were cut for holiday greenery, which fed public concern for the shrub. Governor Gifford Pinchot signed the law making it the state flower on May 5, 1933, a choice linked to his wife, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot, who favored the laurel. Connecticut has also chosen the mountain laurel as its state flower.