The state flower of New Jersey is the common blue violet, which has alternative names such as hooded violet and wood violet. It was used for food and medicine by Native Americans, and became the state flower in 1971 after multiple attempts. Other US states have also adopted the violet as their official flower.
The state flower of New Jersey, one of the component states of the United States of America, is the common blue violet, known scientifically as Viola sororia. Belonging to the genus of flowering plants in the Violaceae family known as Viola, the common blue violet is native to eastern North America, where New Jersey is located. The state flower of New Jersey has several alternative names, which include common violet, hooded violet, violet violet, wood violet, and woolly blue violet.
Long before New Jersey became the third state in the Union on December 18, 1787, area residents relied on the common blue violet for sustenance as well as for medicinal purposes. The flower itself, plus the leaves and possibly the roots, can be eaten. The Cherokee, who once lived in the southeastern United States, used the plant to treat headaches and colds. Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz, an early 19th-century American polymath of French and German ancestry, recorded in his book, Medical Flora, a Manual of the Medical Botany of the United States of North America, that some people used violet to cure constipation , cough and sore throat. The state flower of New Jersey is best known today, however, as a lawn and garden decorator.
The common blue violet’s journey to becoming the state flower of New Jersey began in 1913. The state legislature introduced a resolution to designate it as such that year. Resolving force, however, ended when the legislative session began for 1914; this blocked any action to make the flower one of the official symbols of the state. Another attempt was made in 1963, but ultimately failed.
Meanwhile, New Jersey garden clubs had taken a liking to the common blue violet and pushed for legislation to be enacted regarding its status as the state flower of New Jersey. This was finally accomplished in 1971. Ironically, the common blue violet is no longer widely used in the state’s lawns, fields, and gardens.
New Jersey isn’t the only U.S. state to have officially adopted the violet as its official flower. Wisconsin preceded New Jersey in making the flower an official symbol as early as 1909. Illinois had made Viola sororia its state flower the year before. Rhode Island schoolchildren voted for the common blue violet as the state flower in 1897, but it wasn’t until 1968 that this became official.
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