An artist on the trail of state flowers

When the Credit Union National Association asked landscape artist Margaret Huddy to paint "portraits" of all the states' official flowers, she thought it would be an easy and enjoyable commission.

After all, what could be so difficult - or controversial - about state flowers? Five states honor the rose; four place the violet on a pedestal; dogwood, goldenrod, laurel, magnolia, and rhododendron are designated by two states each; and 31 other states recognize indigenous flowers.

Pretty simple, right? Mrs. Huddy, whose watercolors hang in the US Supreme Court and US State Department, discovered the opposite as she painted one watercolor after another from December 2003 until early June 2004.

First came the problem of finding out exactly which plants represented each state and the District of Columbia. And to confuse the issue further, sometimes states replace one flower with another. Alabama, for instance, decided it liked camellias better than goldenrods. And just last year a persistent 80-something former florist persuaded Oklahoma to dump mistletoe.

"I had no idea that state flowers had been painted so few times, and that other [artists] had just as much trouble [as I did]," Huddy says.

Even the US Postal Service couldn't get a consistent answer from some states before it printed stamps in 1982 that combined states' official flowers and birds. "Some of the states were very vague as to what the genus and species were," says Alan Singer, who painted the flowers for the stamps while his father handled the birds.

Behind the confusion is more than a century of history of state flowers.

The movement to name "official" state flowers began as an outgrowth of Arbor Day, initially celebrated to plant trees on the dusty Nebraska plains.

In 1890, when New York schoolchildren first voted, no flower carried a majority. The next year more than a half-million students selected the rose.

Colorado children voted for the white and lavender columbine in 1891. The legislature endorsed their choice eight years later. In 1964, it rejected a carnation challenger.

The scarlet carnation had already been designated by Ohio to honor native son William McKinley. He wore the flower as congressman, governor, and president until, legend relates, he removed it moments before he was assassinated in 1901.

Students weren't the only ones to get into naming state flowers. Groups of women did, too.

In 1892 in Washington State, women set up booths to encourage votes for the rhododendron over the clover. That wasn't the end, though. Newspapers tell of a periodic "War of the Flowers" until the legislature finally concurred with their selection in 1949 - 57 years later.

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