US State Flowers Quiz — 7 Free Questions

Question 1

Home to the center of the American country music industry, this state shares borders with eight other states, tied for the most of any. Pictured here is the Iris, which this state has chosen as its official flower. Name this US state.

Question 2

Home to well over 11,000 natural lakes, this state is one of the northernmost in the contiguous United States. The Pink and White Lady's Slipper seen in the photo below is this state's official state flower. Which state is being described here?

Question 3

Split into two peninsulas connected by a bridge, this state is the only one bordered by four of the five Great Lakes. Pictured here is the Apple Blossom, which this state has chosen as its official flower. Name this US state.

Question 4

Home to a famous granite monument carved with four presidential faces, this state joined the Union in 1889 alongside its northern twin. This state has officially adopted the Pasque Flower, shown below, as its state flower. Which US state fits this description?

Question 5

Producing roughly a third of the nation's potatoes, this state's narrow northern panhandle stretches up toward the Canadian border. Pictured here is the Syringa, which this state has chosen as its official flower. Name this US state.

Question 6

Home to a mile-deep canyon carved by the Colorado River, this state was the last of the contiguous 48 admitted to the Union, in 1912. The Saguaro Cactus Blossom seen in the photo below is this state's official state flower. Which state is being described here?

Question 7

The second-largest U.S. state by both area and population, this one's flag features a single star from its days as an independent republic. The Bluebonnet seen in the photo below is this state's official state flower. Which state is being described here?

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About US State Flowers

The tradition of states officially adopting a flower dates back to Texas naming the bluebonnet its state flower in 1901, after a fight in the legislature between supporters of the bluebonnet, the cotton boll, and the open cactus flower. The bluebonnet won, and every spring since, entire highways across the Texas Hill Country turn blue with it, drawing photographers and road-trippers who plan their routes purely around the bloom.

Texas's decision kicked off a genuine trend. Over the next few decades, garden clubs and women's civic organizations across the country lobbied their state legislatures directly, and in several states schoolchildren were even asked to vote on a favorite before lawmakers made it official. It became something of a cultural moment in the early 1900s, tied up with a broader wave of state symbols, birds, trees, and mottos, all getting formally adopted around the same period.

Because so many states picked around the same era, there is more overlap than you might expect. The goldenrod became the choice of both Kentucky and Nebraska, while variations of the violet were independently chosen by Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. Wild roses proved especially popular too, claimed in different forms by Iowa, North Dakota's prairie landscape, and Georgia's distinctive Cherokee rose, while New York settled on the rose in a more general sense decades later, in 1955.

Climate and geography shaped plenty of the more distinctive choices. Arizona picked the saguaro cactus blossom, the only flower on this list that blooms on a plant that can live for over 150 years. Utah chose the sego lily, a flower with a genuinely dramatic backstory: Mormon pioneers and local Native American communities reportedly ate its bulbs to survive a famine during a cricket infestation in 1848, and the state adopted it partly in memory of that. Hawaii's choice, the yellow hibiscus, was not made official until 1988, decades after most other states had settled theirs. Virginia leaned into its forests instead, picking the flowering dogwood tree.

Not every state took the obvious route, either. Maine's official "state flower" is technically the white pine cone and tassel, not a flower at all, chosen in 1895 to honor the state's timber industry rather than its wildflowers. Oklahoma had a state floral emblem since 1893, the mistletoe, but the legislature swapped it out in the 2000s in favor of a rose cultivar bred specifically for the state and named the Oklahoma Rose.

The South leaned heavily toward the magnolia. Mississippi's nickname, the Magnolia State, comes directly from its choice, and neighboring Louisiana picked the same flower independently. South Carolina went a different direction with the yellow jessamine, a fragrant climbing vine, while Alabama actually changed its mind partway through the twentieth century, swapping out an earlier goldenrod pick for the camellia in 1959 after complaints that goldenrod triggered allergies.

Out west and up in New England, the choices tell their own regional stories. California picked the golden poppy, whose color echoes the state's Gold Rush history and its nickname, the Golden State, and the flower still blankets entire hillsides across the state every spring. Washington chose the coast rhododendron, and Oregon went with the Oregon grape, a native evergreen shrub rather than a showy bloom. Massachusetts picked the trailing arbutus, better known there as the mayflower, tied directly to Pilgrim history, while Connecticut and Pennsylvania both landed on the mountain laurel, and New Hampshire chose the purple lilac for the hardiness that let it survive the state's harsh winters.

Taken all together, official state flowers end up mapping out America's climate and cultural diversity almost as well as any textbook would, from desert cacti and alpine wildflowers to tropical hibiscus and colonial-era shrubs. Beyond the pure fact-recall, half the fun of a quiz like this one is discovering the specific, often unexpected story behind a flower you drive past every day without ever knowing its history.