Mountain laurel, the state flower of Connecticut and Pennsylvania

Two states

Connecticut’s General Assembly named the mountain laurel its state flower in 1907. Pennsylvania followed in 1933, when Governor Gifford Pinchot signed the bill, a choice linked to the enthusiasm of his wife, Cornelia Bryce Pinchot, for the shrub. In the 1920s about 20 million pounds of laurel foliage a year were being cut for holiday greenery, which had fed public concern for the plant.

Named for Peter Kalm

The scientific name, Kalmia latifolia, was given by the botanist Linnaeus, who honored Peter Kalm, who sent him specimens in 1750, and described the plant’s broad leaves. Older folk names include calico bush and spoonwood.

How to recognize it

Mountain laurel is an evergreen shrub, usually 7 to 10 feet tall, with leathery, glossy leaves 2 to 5 inches long. Its flowers grow in clusters, each about an inch across, cup-shaped and five-sided like a small star or parasol, white to pink with purple-red markings. The stamens are bent back under tension, and when a bumblebee visits they spring free and dust it with pollen.

Where it grows

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

Poisonous

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