Rabbitbrush – Utah State Flower!

… or – at least it should be!

A carpet of California Poppy flowers in the spring is magnificent! No wonder it’s the California state flower.

So … What is the Utah State Flower? It’s the Sego Lilly! And how did the Sego Lilly get to be the Utah State flower? The early Mormon pioneers ate the bulbs to keep from starving to death right after they arrived in 1847. You can find that claim on a dozen official websites. So … it’s kinda traditional.

It’s like the Utah State bird – the California Seagull. They're honored in Utah because seagulls ate crickets that were threatening the first crops of those same pioneers so they wouldn’t starve to death. Do you see a theme here?

(But see the note at the end.)

I have occasionally seen Sego Lillies here in Zion – even on my own property. A few. They’re far from common and you generally have to look carefully, and quickly, to even see one. Part of the problem is that they only bloom in the spring. Spring usually occurs here from 10 AM to 11 AM on the second Tuesday in April. After that, it’s summer, hot and dry, and the Sego Lilies all dry up.

It's a good story! If you dig into the details, it’s even better. Sego Lilly bulbs are hard to dig up even when you find a flower. My mother used to transplant them into her garden so I had some experience as a kid trying to find the bulb. The stem is as fine as fishing line, as delicate as smoke, and usually buried over a foot deep. It’s almost impossible to follow the stem into the ground especially in the rocky soil where they usually are. I always ended up digging a hole big enough plant a tree and sifting through the ground until I found the bulb. If I had to depend on Sego Lilly bulbs for food, I would be long dead. HistoryToGo.Utah.gov has this to say about the bulbs: “Some bulbs were as large as walnuts, but most were the size of marbles. The bulbs were best fresh-cooked because they turned thick and ropey when cool.”

These stories about the early Mormon pioneers in Utah always make me think that they must have been as tough as cement nails and could eat air to stay alive.

My candidate for Utah State flower is Rabbitbrush!

While you “might” see a Sego Lilly for a short while in Utah’s spring, Rabbitbrush starts to bloom in the autumn – about now (October). Utah has a much better autumn season. It’s generally dry and sunny. It’s not too hot or too cold. And it lasts for more than just an hour. You can usually see the towering yellow stands of Rabbitbrush for a month.

According to Utah State University, Rabbitbrush can be found at elevations “between 2,600 and 11,000 feet”. The minimum is about the same as the lowest elevation in Utah and only a few peaks are higher than 11,000 feet. That’s the whole state! I wonder why they didn’t just say, “the whole state”.

Rabbitbrush is also good at surviving in the desert because it sends down deep roots that can tap into the water table – if there is one. That’s why you can find it in most of the desert valleys that transport water from the island mountains of Utah to the Colorado River. Here in Zion, we have the Virgin River. It’s a great place to see Rabbitbrush.

Rabbitbrush near Los Alamos, New Mexico – where the atomic bomb was developed – show off this ability to “go deep” in an unusual way. Radioactive strontium-90 is 300,000 times higher in them than a normal plant because the roots reach into a closed nuclear waste treatment area. They’re easy to find with a Geiger Counter. But Rabbitbrush is tough. They show no sign of being radioactive.

The Rabbitbrush here in Zion is exceptionally fine!

The Dog Park (not the real name – just what the locals call it) is next to the river so the plants can reach down just a few yards to find water. They grow tall and beautiful every year.

The thing I like most about Rabbitbrush is also the reason why it will never be the Utah State flower. According to Utah State University, “rabbitbrush is, in general, considered of little value to all classes of livestock.” Cows can’t eat it! I grew up in Utah. It would be nice to have a river that isn’t stomped into sludge somewhere in the state.

Note about the seagulls. Historians have demonstrated that the story about the seagulls and the crickets is just folklore and didn’t actually happen. See the Wikipedia article, Miracle of the Gulls.