Introduction to Texas Bluebonnets
Every spring, Texas wildflowers pepper the rolling hills around the state in various shades of white, yellow, pink, and purple.
But there’s one particular color that Texans flock to view: blue.
The state flower — the bluebonnet — is making its appearance again.
The bluebonnet has been the state’s flower since 1901, beating out the cotton boll and the cactus, according to Texas A&M archives.
After so many years, what makes the beloved flower so unique?
Here’s everything you need to know about these blue beauties.
Those Purple Flowers You See Popping Are Not Necessarily Bluebonnets
Though there are many varieties of bluish, purple, and lavender-colored wildflowers, some purple patches popping up across North Texas should not be confused with bluebonnets.
Some of the purple flowers we’re seeing now are called grape hyacinth. The flowers are smaller and round, like tiny grapes, and the leaves are thin and narrow as opposed to the larger blooms, petals, and leaves of the bluebonnet.
This is not a bluebonnet. Grape hyacinths pop up in patches near the Bluebonnet Trail on Thursday, March, 17, 2022 in Plano, Texas. Texas’ state flower is the bluebonnet.
(Rebecca Slezak / Staff Photographer)
More Than Blue
Just like people have different-colored eyes and hair, bluebonnets naturally come in a variety of hues, said Andrea DeLong-Amaya, director of horticulture at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin. While the standard color is sky blue or a darker cobalt, she said, sometimes the flowers are a paler blue, white — and even pink.
It took about 30 years for a red bluebonnet to be developed by former A&M horticulture specialist Jerry Parsons, said Texas A&M extension horticulturist Larry Stein, who helped develop the hue.
They wanted to make a Texas flag from the state’s flower, but a red bluebonnet didn’t exist, Stein said.
“There are very rare instances where you will find a pink bluebonnet,” he said.
Bluebonnets bloom near the UT Tower on the University of Texas campus in Austin. The flower beds are now also home to a variant known as Alamo Fire, which is a shade of maroon that had some wondering if it is a Texas A&M prank.
(Dborah Cannon – AP)
The pink bluebonnets were isolated so they wouldn’t pollinate with blue or white colors, and over time a red strain of the plant was discovered.
Now, there are Aggie-colored bluebonnets.
State Flower Debate
After the bluebonnet, also known as the “buffalo clover,” was declared the state flower by the Texas Legislature in 1901, a “polite bluebonnet war,” started, according to an archive from Parsons on the A&M website.
The species of bluebonnet chosen is “not really very pretty,” Stein said. People wanted a showier, bolder-colored bluebonnet as the flower.
Seventy years later, the legislature solved the problem with “typical political maneuvering” and lumped all bluebonnets — even undiscovered ones — into the state flower, the archive said.
This has resulted in five different varieties of bluebonnets being considered the state flower, Stein said.
