WASHINGTON, D.C. – In celebration of our nation’s 250th anniversary this year, the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. will showcase a special exhibit that features flowers for all 50 states and U.S. territories.
From the Texas bluebonnets To the U.S. Virgin Islands yellow elder, the U.S. Botanic Garden has all states and territories represented.
“We connected through our exhibit, as we always do, with our exhibits to our mission: to get people excited about plants and to learn more about plants,” said Dr. Susan Pell, the executive director of the USBG. “So, we’re featuring the state and territory flowers as a way of connecting native plants and native flora to the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States.”
Pell adds as people enter the conservatory they’ll see a display of paper models of all of the state and territory flowers. “Which is a really gorgeous and artistic interpretation of these flowers and really kind of showcases the diversity of the plants that have been selected to represent the states and territories.”
Each flower thrives in their own climate and getting them to Washington was a challenge.
“Some of them we already had in our collection, in fact a good quantity of plants from across the US were already represented,” said Devin Dotson with the USBG. “That was exciting for us to say: ‘hey we’ve got a big beautiful dogwood or magnolia for several states,’ but for some of them it was an opportunity to reach out to our botanic garden colleagues or for growers in that state and say ‘how can we showcase your states flower?’ So, some of it has been multiple months of research and outreach to get good examples of these.”
Officials said the 250th anniversary exhibit is like representing a piece of home.
“People are really proud of where they live and where they come from so they say ‘hey that my state, I recognize that’ or maybe they grow it in their yard or see it in area gardens but it’s a point of celebration and excitement for them,” said Dotson.
The exhibit will run through mid-October.
