No Respect For The Past

I will try and make this short. For one hundred and eleven years, the Mistletoe was the state flower of Oklahoma, even though Oklahoma was not a state until 1907, it was still being heavily considered in the 1890‘s. Anyway, it is said that because flowers were so scarce on the plains of Oklahoma Territory that when early settlers decorated the graves of their loved ones that they had to turn to a more available source of plant life, the Mistletoe. So from 1893 until 2004 the Mistletoe, Phoradendron Serotinum, served as our State Flower or Floral Emblem. Throughout the years there has been a controversy among garden clubs that the Mistletoe was not a flower but rather a parasite that attached itself to host trees and shrubs, therefore not a good representative as a State Flower. So in 2004 Governor Brad Henry (a man I otherwise approve of) championed a bill that was passed declaring the, “Oklahoma Rose” (a hybrid tea rose developed in 1964) as the official State Flower of Oklahoma and that the Mistletoe would at least remain as the State Floral Emblem. So with no respect for the past or history, something sacred that marked the graves of people who settled our state was moved aside for a rather plain red rose that was developed by a couple of men in a lab at Oklahoma State University. It has no character or romance in my book, but that’s Ok because when the roses die out for the year and everything turns brown the Mistletoe in the tops of my trees will still be green and will forever symbolize the perseverance of early Oklahoma settlers.

And on a similar note, the, “Indian Blanket” was adopted by Oklahoma as the State “Wild” Flower in 1910, and the green color of the Mistletoe foliage and the white of it’s berries remains the State Colors.