State flowers of all 50 states

Older than most symbols

State flowers came early. Nine states adopted one in the 1890s and twelve more in the 1900s, decades before most states thought about a bird, a tree or a fossil. In Washington the reason was the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago: women chose the rhododendron in a statewide ballot in 1892 so the state would have a flower to show there, years before they could vote in elections. Vermont was first in law, naming the red clover in 1894, and Delaware, Maine, Montana and Nebraska followed the next year.

As with birds, schoolchildren often made the choice. In 1900, 23,278 Mississippi children voted, and the magnolia won with 12,745 votes, ahead of the cotton blossom. Illinois children picked the violet over the wild rose and goldenrod in 1907, and Wisconsin’s violet won a final schoolchildren’s vote on Arbor Day 1909. Sometimes the law took a long time to catch up: Mississippi made the magnolia official only in 1952, and Rhode Island, whose children had picked the violet in 1897, did not adopt it until 1968. The state says that made it the last state to name an official flower.

Violets, roses and blossoms

State flowers are more varied than state birds: the 50 states have well over 40 different ones. Roses are the most common. Iowa and North Dakota chose the wild prairie rose, Georgia the Cherokee rose, New York the rose in every color, and Oklahoma one specific cultivated rose. Violets come next, chosen by Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. Two southern states share the magnolia and two share the dogwood, while Arkansas and Michigan both chose the apple blossom.

Many choices celebrate a crop. Delaware picked the peach blossom in 1895, when its orchards held more than 800,000 peach trees. Arkansas chose the apple blossom in 1901 after a campaigner brought a bushel of polished apples into the state Senate. Florida’s orange blossom came in 1909.

The unexpected ones

Maine’s floral emblem is not a flower at all but the cone and tassel of the white pine, chosen in 1895, half a century before the white pine itself became the state tree. Nevada’s state flower is sagebrush, which also forms the wreath on the state flag. Ohio adopted the scarlet carnation in memory of President William McKinley, who wore one as a lucky charm and handed his lapel carnation to a young admirer moments before he was shot in 1901.

Some states have ended up with two. Tennessee named the iris in 1933 without repealing its 1919 choice of the passion flower, and lived with two state flowers until 1973, when the law made the iris the cultivated flower and the passion flower the wildflower. Minnesota’s first choice, in 1893, was a lady slipper that does not grow wild in the state; a study club pointed out the mistake, and in 1902 the Legislature switched to the pink and white lady slipper.

The newest is the Oklahoma Rose, a dark red hybrid tea bred in 1964. One Oklahoman, Dottie Weissenberger, campaigned for more than 30 years to make it the state flower, and the governor signed the bill in 2004.

Find a flower

Click any flower above for the state’s page, with how to recognize it, where it grows and the story of its adoption. To test yourself, try the state flowers quiz.