The Tennessee State Flower - The Iris
Did you know that the iris was the state of Tennesee's state flower? Most people consider the purple Iris to be the state flower locally. It is a beauty.
There is a very neat story to all of this.
The State of Tennessee is different from most of the other states in that it currently has no one flower generically named as an official flower or floral emblem. Instead, it has an official wild flower and an official cultivated flower, both designated most recently in 1973. There is a story behind this.
State Wildflower
The story of Tennessee's state wildflower, the passionflower, began in 1919 when state school children named it as their favorite and it was adopted as Tennessee's state flower. Yes, the passion flower was initially Tennessee's one and only state flower. It was adopted in 1919 by Senate Joint Resolution No. 13.
Here is a picture of a Passionflower
State Cultivated Flower
The Tennessee state cultivated flower, the iris, was designated as the state flower in 1933 by the Tennessee Legislature without regard to the previously selected passion flower.
In the early 1930s, garden clubs had become quite popular around the state. With the growth of the garden clubs, the dissatisfaction with the passionflower as a representative of the state grew as well and supporters of the iris moved to have it designated the official state flower. They claimed that the passionflower was never "officially" adopted and they managed to pass legislation adopting the iris as Tennessee's state flower.
If the iris supporters thought that the passion flower had been forgotten, they were very wrong. Criticisms flew and the arguments between the two groups were passionate and often heated. In 1973, after forty years of argument, the Tennessee Legislature found compromise by declaring the passion flower (original state flower) the official state wildflower and the iris (adopted in 1933) the official state cultivated flower.
Here are some pictures of the State flower I have took myself.
Here it is in its unedited glory!
