Flowers/ Plants/ Trees
In a number of countries, plants have been chosen as symbols to represent specific geographic areas. Some countries have a country-wide floral emblem; others in addition have symbols representing subdivisions. more...
 Home
Africa
Asia
Commonwealth/ British...
Great Britain
Ireland
Latin America
Middle East
Philately/ Postal History
Rest of the World
Thematics
 Animation/ Cartoons/ Disney
Art
Collections/ Mixture
Holiday/ Seasonal
Medical/ Red Cross
Military
Music
Nature
 Birds
Domestic/ Farm Animals
Fish/ Marine
Flowers/ Plants/ Trees
Insects/ Butterflies
Other Nature Thematics
Reptiles/ Amphibians
Wild Animals
Other Thematics
People
Royalty
Sports
Transport/ Space
United States
Different processes have been used to adopt these symbols - some are conferred by government bodies, whereas others are the result of informal public polls. The term floral emblem, which refers to flowers specifically, is primarily used in Australia and Canada. In the United States, the term state flower is more often used.
Europe
United Kingdom
Each of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom has a traditional national floral symbol. In England this is the rose, in Scotland this is the thistle, and in Wales this is the Leek.
A county flower is a flowering plant chosen to symbolise a county. They exist primarily in the United Kingdom, but some counties in other countries also have them.
County flowers in the United Kingdom
One or two county flowers have a long history in England - the Red rose of Lancashire dates from the Middle Ages, for instance. However, the county flower concept was only extended to cover the whole United Kingdom in 2002, as a promotional tool by a charity. In that year, the plant conservation charity Plantlife ran a competition to choose county flowers for all counties, to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.
Plantlife's scheme is loosely based on Britain's traditional counties, and so some current local government areas are not represented by a flower, and some of the counties included no longer exist as administrative areas. Flowers were also chosen for thirteen major cities: Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Nottingham and Sheffield. The Isles of Scilly was also treated as a county (distinct from Cornwall) for the purpose of the scheme. The Isle of Man was included, but not the Channel Islands.
A total of 94 flowers was chosen in the competition. 85 of the 109 counties have a unique county flower, but several species were chosen by more than one county. Foxglove Digitalis purpurea was chosen for four counties - Argyll, Birmingham, Leicestershire and Monmouthshire) - more than any other species. The following species were chosen for three counties each:
Bog Rosemary Andromeda polifolia (Cardiganshire, Kirkcudbright and Tyrone);
Cowslip Primula veris (Northamptonshire, Surrey and Worcestershire);
Harebell Campanula rotundifolia (Antrim, Dumfries and Yorkshire);
Thrift Armeria maritima (Bute, Pembrokeshire and the Isles of Scilly);
And the following species were chosen for two counties:
Read more at Wikipedia.org
|
