Beautiful Bluebonnets — Fort Worth Fact
Leave a Comment
Detective Frank “Pink” Bettman is trying to solve a murder at Bluebonnet Circle, in BATTER UP, BETTMAN
LORE OF THE BLUEBONNET
Bluebonnets have been loved since humans first trod the vast prairies of Texas. Indians wove fascinating folk tales around them. The early-day Spanish priests gathered the seeds and grew them around their missions. This practice gave rise to the myth that the padres had brought the plant from Spain, but this cannot be true since the two predominant species of bluebonnets are found growing naturally only in Texas and at no other location in the world.
As historian Jack Maguire so aptly wrote, “It’s not only the state flower but also a kind of floral trademark almost as well known to outsiders as cowboy boots and the Stetson hat.” He goes on to affirm that “The bluebonnet is to Texas what the shamrock is to Ireland, the cherry blossom to Japan, the lily to France, the rose to England and the tulip to Holland.”
The ballad of our singing governor, the late W. Lee O’Daniel, goes, “you may be on the plains or the mountains or down where the sea breezes blow, but bluebonnets are one of the prime factors that make the state the most beautiful land that we know.
by JERRY M. PARSONS, STEVE GEORGE AND GREG GRANT
TEXAS COOPERATIVE EXTENSION
Read BATTER UP, BETTMAN to get more Texas tales, and all the Cowtown Crimes, by M.D. Poole.
M.D. POOLE 