Homes and Gardens

State Flower

Posted at June 30, 2006 13:23

By John Fisher

Missourians required seven years and the involvement of numerous statewide organizations to agree on a state flower. Marie L. Goodman offered the first suggestion in a January 1916 Missouri State Horticultural Society meeting. They selected a committee to solicit nominations, each of which had to ensure that the flower was beautiful in color and form, native to the state, abundant, and distributed statewide. In December 1916, the wild crab apple received the most nominations, followed by the wild rose. The Missouri Horticultural Society introduced a bill naming the crab apple, but it failed in the House. Other flowers receiving nominations included aster, honeysuckle, black-eyed Susan, violet, hollyhock, and burdock.

In 1919, the Missouri Daughters of the American Revolution proposed the daisy, but discovered the next day at their state meeting that it was not native. Mrs. Waller Washington Graves nominated the hawthorn. In 1922, the hawthorn passed the Senate but not the House. The DAR sought support from groups such as the Missouri State Teachers Association, the Sons of the Revolution, and Missouri Federated Women’s Clubs. F. B. Mumford, head of the University of Missouri-Columbia Department of Agriculture, gave his endorsement.

In 1923, Sarah Lucille Turner from Kansas City, one of two women elected to state legislature in 1922, introduced a bill making the hawthorn our state flower. The measure passed both houses and was signed by Governor Arthur M. Hyde on March 16, 1923.

Since the hawthorns are a large group of plants, the legislature designated the entire genus, Crataegus, as the state flower. Hawthorns display their gorgeous, large clusters of white flowers in April and May. They resemble those of its relative, the apple. The flowers produce red berries providing food for wildlife. These berries were also used by early Missouri settlers to make jelly. The hawthorn often invades uncultivated fields.

The hawthorn has not been a good source of lumber, but shuttles for looms have been made from its wood. The beauty of its flowers and berries make the hawthorn attractive as an ornamental, but it is vulnerable to disease and insects. Because of its thorns, the hawthorn needs to be placed in an area that minimizes contact by animals and people.

June 2006

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