Vermont school children see the colors of the state butterfly, the monarch butterfly, as symbolic of Vermont. The color yellow is said to represent “fields blanketed in dandelions in spring.” But Vermont’s state insect, the honeybee, is a fan of the state flower, red clover.
The 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago inspired the state flower movement. Vermonters set about choosing their floral emblem the next year.
The state flower campaign created a surprising amount of rivalry. Some cities voted for the red clover. It is very important to the stock raising and dairying industry, which has long been prominent in Vermont.
Other cities championed the daisy and still others the mayflower, or arbutus. The posy was still another favorite. Newspapers blasted the daisy, claiming it wasn’t native to Vermont and was no friend of farmers. Ironically, red clover isn’t a Vermont native either.
An Old World Phenomenon
The clover family may have originated in Asia Minor and Southeastern Europe. Farmers learned that their cattle liked clover. (Today, scientists know that clover offers cattle a rich source of Vitamins A and E.) Furthermore, clover improved their land. Like other legumes, such as alfalfa, it enriches the soil with nitrogen.
Not surprisingly, red clover began to spread. It was brought to Spain and was growing in Holland by 1500. Fifty years later, it covered Germany. The British Isles were awash in clover a century later.
Red clover was brought to the New World by English colonists. Today, red clover grows just about everywhere in Vermont, including forested areas that aren’t too shady.
If you know that a tricycle has three wheels and “foliage” is another word for leaves, you might guess the meaning of the first word in red clover’s scientific name, Trifolium. It means “three-leaved.” So what would a quadrafoliate plant be?
It would be four-leaved, which is fairly ordinary—unless it’s a four-leaf clover. The four-leaf clover that serves as the Vermont Lottery’s logo is but a new twist on an ancient tradition.
A Lucky Symbol
Through the ages, many different peoples have considered clovers magic, and four-leaf clovers especially so. One folktale from Scotland has it that a milkmaid wearing a four-leaf clover on her apron can watch pixies milking the cows.
Clover brought plenty of luck to Vermont’s dairy and honey industries. It’s more than coincidence that a cow is depicted on Vermont’s state seal and the state insect is the honeybee. Like clover, cattle and honeybees were brought to the New World by European colonists.
Sweet clovers such as red clover, ladino clover, and alskie or white clover contribute to Vermont’s reputation as a dairying and bee-keeping state. They supply the nutrition cows need to produce milk and the nectar that bees convert to honey.
Without clover, Vermont’s honeybees couldn’t produce the light, flavorful honeys Vermont is noted for. Commented one state apiarist, or beekeeper, “The taste is superior, a fine, mild-tasting honey, light-colored.” Mix clover honey with basswood honey and, in Drutchas’ words, “It’s like ambrosia.”
Most beekeeping is in the Champlain Valley, which has a lot of clay soils that support clover. Actually, Vermont’s state flower isn’t involved in the honey industry. Its flower is too long for the honeybee’s tongue, which is better suited to white clover. But the native bumblebee can utilize red clover.
An Adopted Immigrant
Red clover certainly didn’t need the bumblebee to tip the scales in its favor. It handily won the state flower vote, with 9,575 votes. The daisy came in second with 2,569 votes, followed by the buttercup with 945.
The red clover was adopted as Vermont’s state flower on November 9, 1894. Perhaps it should be the national flower of the United States, a nation of immigrants. After all, the pine on Vermont’s state seal nearly became the national emblem.
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