Endemic to our state, bluebonnets grow from central Texas’ Blackland Prairie to the Big Bend, thriving in the Edwards Plateau’s arid conditions and often forming expansive carpets in pastures and along highways. Ennis, south of Dallas, is the state’s “Official Bluebonnet City,” and Burnet in the Hill Country is the “Bluebonnet Capital of Texas.” Portrayals of bluebonnets grace Texas galleries and living rooms, none more treasured than the original oil paintings of W.A. Slaughter, 1923-2003, a self-taught as a landscape painter.

So, it is fortunate the 1901 Legislature turned down a proposal for the cotton boll to be the state flower, choosing instead Lupinus subcarnosus. Otherwise, historian Jack Maguire’s ode could not have been written: “The bluebonnet is to Texas what the shamrock is to Ireland.”

In time, other bluebonnet species were identified, so the 1971 Legislature designated the most striking one, Lupinus texensis, in addition to the 1901 choice and “any other variety of bluebonnet not heretofore recorded.”