Our flora, Ourselves
States choose Lewis and Clark plants as their official symbols
By JoLene Krawczak
Photos by Joan Carlin
THE OREGONIAN
Describe state trees and flowers of the West and you also describe traits associated with people who live among them: unique, adapt well to rugged environments with little outside help, resilient, useful, but often beautiful, too.
Mountain Hemlock
Washington State Tree
On the edge of America at the tip of Washington, a mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana) hangs on for life to a jetty at Cape Disappointment. Lewis and Clark didn’t find the hoped-for trading ship for supplies and a lift home. TRADITIONAL USES: Bark made spoons, poles, combs, spear shafts, elderberry picking hooks and fish hooks. Also used as a tanning agent. DESCRIBED: Fort Clatsop, Feb. 5, 1806 Generations after Lewis and Clark listed new trees and flowers in their journals, states along the trail chose many of them for their symbols.
"Attachment to place forms a strong part of our identity," says environmental psychologist Nancy Chapman, professor in the School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University.
That helps explain why we collectively link our identity to native trees and flowers when naming official state symbols.
Oregon's state tree, the Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), is one state symbol that isn't listed as a Lewis and Clark discovery. Why?
Clearly, they saw them. Lewis wrote a detailed description of Douglas fir while at Fort Clatsop. But Archibald Menzies of Scotland is credited with its discovery in 1791 on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. David Douglas, also of Scotland, identified the tree in the Pacific Northwest in 1826.
Oregon Grape
Oregon State Flower
Oregon Grape Oregon state flower Celilo Falls, where Lewis found Oregon grape (Berberis aquifolium), is gone, but the shrub hangs on here and thrives in moister climates west of the Cascade Range. TRADITIONAL USES: The tart, ripe berries were eaten raw, but generally sparingly, and often mixed with sweeter fruit. Fruits were boiled for juice. A bight-yellow dye from shredded stems and roots colored basket materials, mountain goat wool and porcupine quills. Prickly branches were place in a person's grace and around the walls and on furniture where a person died, to prevent the ghost from returning. COLLECTED: Celilo Falls, April 11, 1805Because the Lewis and Clark Herbarium contains only one evergreen sample, ponderosa pine, and because the explorers called many evergreens "pines" — short-leaf pine, long-leaf pine, spruce pine — exactly which trees they were writing about is open to interpretation. There is some difference of opinion.
We chose to include Pacific yew (Taxus brevifolia) in Lewis and Clark's discoveries based on botanist Paul Cutright, author of "Lewis & Clark: Pioneering Naturalists." He credits the pair with discovering it. We know they would have passed many yew trees on their journey from Montana to Oregon.
It helps that the journals pinpoint where the explorers were on a certain day, because botanists know what plants grow there today.
You, too, can return to these very sites and celebrate our states' heritage.
Rhododendron Macrophyllum
Washington State Flower
Rhododendron Macrophyllum Washington state flower In 1892, before they had the right to vote, Washington women chose the coast rhododendron as the state flower. In 1959 the statute was amended to specify the native R. macrophylum. COLLECTED: Astoria, Nov. 30, 1805
Stately flora
As the West was carved into states, each state began to celebrate its distinct landscape by naming official state trees and flowers. Among the 10 states along the Lewis and Clark Trail, all but two have named as their official tree or flower a plant that the explorers discovered. They are:
IDAHO
Mock orange (1931)
Western white pine (1935) IOWA
Wild rose (1897) (generally considered Rosa arkansana) KANSAS
Cottonwood (1937) MONTANA
Bitterroot (1895)
Ponderosa pine (1949) NEBRASKA
Cottonwood (1972) NORTH DAKOTA
Wild prairie rose (1907) (generally considered Rosa arkansana) OREGON
Oregon grape (1899) WASHINGTON
Western rhododendron (1892)
Mountain hemlock (1947)
Western White Pine
Idaho State Tree
A young white pine developed to resist blister rust grows at the ranger station at the base of a mountain in Clearwater National Forest.
A mountainside in the Clearwater National Forest shows the devestation of blister rust, a disease killing the Western white pine (Pinus monticola). DESCRIBED: Fort Clapsop, Feb. 6, 1806
Mock Orange
Idaho State Flower
In Lewiston, Idaho, a mock orange (Philadelphus lewisii) grows along the banks of the Clearwater River, just before it meets the Snake River. COLLECTED: Clearwater River, Idaho, May 6, 1806
Cottonwood
Kansas and Nebraska State Tree
Various species of cottonwoods (Populus angustifolia, P. balsamifera trichocarpa, P. deltoides ssp. monilifera) stretch from the Midwest on the Missouri River (above) to the Pacific Northwest. The tree is multi-use: windbreaks and shade, habitat for wild. It's no wonder two states adopted it as their state symbol. Nowadays, hybrid cottonwoods are making their mark as a quick-growing renewable resource for paper. COLLECTED: Montana, various dates
Wild Rose
Iowa and North Dakota State Flower
Wild Rose Iowa and North Dakota's state flower. The wild Rosa arkansana's pink blooms can be found in most Plains states along the Lewis and Clark Trail, but only Iowa and North Dakota officially call it their own. COLLECTED: North Dakota, Oct. 18, 1804
THE LEGACY GROWS reproduced courtesy of the Oregonian.
These stories originally ran May 24, 2001
© 2001 The Oregonian
© 2001 http://www.oregonlive.com/hg/
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