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Flowers & Floral Emblems

The term floral emblem, which refers to flowers specifically, is primarily used in Australia and Canada. In the United States, the term state flower is more often used.

Arkansas State Flower

Apple Blossom

{Malus (Pyrus) coronaria}

Adopted in 1901.

The apple blossom, Malus (Pyrus) coronaria, was adopted as the Arkansas State Flower by the Thirty-third General Assembly of 1901. Apple blossoms have pink and white petals and green leaves. At one time Arkansas was a major apple-producing state. The town of Lincoln in Washington County hosts the annual Arkansas Apple Festival.

The apple blossom was chosen because at that time Arkansas was known as the apple state and sometimes called "The Land of the Big Red Apple." At one time Benton County was the chief apple-producing county in the US Today Arkansas ranks 32ndin apple production.

Synonyms/other Latin names: = Malus coronaria var. coronaria (L.) Mill. (NoR)

Common name(s): sweet crabapple

This is a well-known tree, growing from 20 to 40 feet high, with rigid, crooked, spreading branches, and a rough, blackish bark. The apple tree is a native of Europe, naturalized in this country, and flowers from April to June. There are, probably, nearly 1000 varieties cultivated in the United States, and all of which are said to be derived from the Wild crab (Pyrus coronaria, Linné). From the fruit cider is manufactured, and both the fruit and its cider are much used for domestic and medicinal purposes.

Lifespan: Perennial
Height: 9 m
Leaves: The leaves are from 2 to 3 inches long, about 2/3 as wide, ovate, or oblong-ovate, serrate, acute, or short-acuminate, pubescent above, tomentose beneath, and on petioles from 1/2 to 1 inch in length.
Flower Color: The flowers are pink, sometimes fading to white, and very fragrant. The attractive flowers resemble the common apple bloom. Flowers scent the May landscape. Fruit is greenish and ripens in September.
Flower Size: The flowers are large (4 cm) fragrant, expanding with the leaves, of pale-rose color, and borne in subumbellate corymbs. The calyx-tube is urn-shaped, with limb 5-cleft; the pedicels and calyx villose-tomentose. Petals 5, roundish, or obovate, with short claws. Stamens numerous; styles 5, united, and villose at base.
Bloom Season: April-May
Fruit: 2.5-3 cm in diameter; like a small apple; yellow-green, maturing in late summer
Conditions: Moist soils in openings and borders of forests

Taxonomic Hierarchy
Kingdom	Plantae -- Plants
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta -- Vascular plants
Superdivision	Spermatophyta -- Seed plants
Division	Magnoliophyta -- Flowering plants
Class	Magnoliopsida -- Dicotyledons
Subclass	Rosidae
Order	Rosales
Family	Rosaceae -- Rose family
Genus	Malus P. Mill. -- apple P
Species	Malus coronaria (L.) P. Mill. -- sweet crabapple P

State Flowers

Find images and a brief history of the flowers representing, usually by legislative action, the state symbols of each of the fifty states. Many of the state flowers are actually trees -- some states have chosen the same species as state tree and as state flower.

flow·er (flour)
n.
1.
a. It is the reproductive structure of many seed-bearing plants, typically having either specialized male or female organs or both male and female organs, like stamens and a pistil, enclosed in an outer envelope of petals and sepals. b. Such a structure having showy or colorful parts; a blossom.
2. A plant that is cultivated or cherished for its blossoms. 3. The condition or a time of having developed flowers: The violets were in full flower. 4. Something, such as an decoration or a figure of speech that resembles a flower in shape, fineness, or attractiveness.