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A Texas Legend 
“People have admired bluebonnets throughout history. Native American lore passed down the origin of the bluebonnet. One commonly told story explains how a young girl burned her most valued possession, a doll with a bright blue feather headdress, as a sacrifice to the Great Spirit. After the girl blew the ashes in all directions, the Great Spirit left a sign of his approval by covering the land with a blanket of beautiful blue flowers.
Many names have been given to the bluebonnet. Early settlers thought the pretty, blue wildflowers looked like their blue bonnets, hence a common name. Another name used by settlers was buffalo clover. Neither buffalo, cattle nor horses, however, like to eat bluebonnets.
The Spanish called the flowers "el conejo" meaning jackrabbit. Perhaps the white tips waving in the wind reminded them of the bobbing rabbit tail. Old World botanists called bluebonnets "wolf flower." It was once thought that they robbed the soil of nutrients, like wolves robbed shepherds of their sheep. Actually, bluebonnets enrich the soil by adding nitrogen.
Bluebonnets have long been a favorite of Texans. Historian Jack Maguire refers to Texas’ state flower as "an institution, almost as well known to outsiders as cowboy boots and the Stetson hat." On March 7, 1901, the Texas House of Representatives adopted the bluebonnet, originally Lupinus subcarnosus, as the official state flower. Imagine if one of the other ideas - the open cotton boll ("the white flower of commerce") or the flowering prickly pear, for instance - had won the nomination.
On March 8, 1971, Texas Legislators decided that the official Texas flower should not exclude the showier and more prolific Lupinus texensis. Just to make sure, the new state flower resolution included "any other variety of bluebonnet not heretofore recorded." This means that the six species of bluebonnets native to Texas are considered the state flower.
One of the most beloved wildflower advocates made her voice heard when her husband, Lyndon B. Johnson, became president in 1963. Lady Bird Johnson, just two years later, along with Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, a group of philanthropists, designers, publishers, other officials and civic leaders formed the Committee for a More Beautiful Capital. This was Lady Bird Johnson’s first contribution to the "Keep America Beautiful" campaign. On her 70th birthday, December 1982, Lady Bird celebrated by donating 60 acres of land on the Colorado River near Austin and the funding needed to found the National Wildflower Research Center. Now called the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, she stated the goal of the center is "to educate people about the environmental necessity, economic values and natural beauty of native plants.
"The Texas Department of Highways, later known as Texas Department of Transportation, played a legendary role in the country’s highway beautification programs. They began sowing bluebonnet seed along the highways for erosion control in 1929 when Judge W.R. Ely, member of the Highway Commission, called for "landscaped roadsides, with construction planned to retain natural beauty." The Texas Department of Transportation sows 60,000 pounds of wildflower seeds across the state each year.”
Darlene Conley, Horticulturist
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