~The Natural State~.......ARKANSAS

[olena]

State Floral Emblem

Apple Blossom

The apple blossom was adopted as the Arkansas State Flower by the Thirty-third General Assembly of 1901. Apple blossoms have pink and white petals and green leaves. At one time Arkansas was a major apple-producing state. Legend has it that the apple tree was first brought to Arkansas by Johnny Appleseed. The town of Lincoln in Washington County hosts the annual Arkansas Apple Festival.
The apple blossom was chosen because at that time Arkansas was known as the apple state and sometimes called "The Land of the Big Red Apple." At one time Benton County was the chief apple-producing county in the U.S. Today Arkansas ranks 32ndin apple production.
Synonyms/other Latin names: = Malus coronaria var. coronaria (L.) Mill. (NoR)
Common name(s): sweet crabapple
This is a well-known tree, growing from 20 to 40 feet high, with rigid, crooked, spreading branches, and a rough, blackish bark. The apple tree is a native of Europe, naturalized in this country, and flowers from April to June. There are, probably, nearly 1000 varieties cultivated in the United States, and all of which are said to be derived from the Wild crab (Pyrus coronaria, Linné). From the fruit cider is manufactured, and both the fruit and its cider are much used for domestic and medicinal purposes.
Lifespan: Perennial

Height: 9 m
Leaves: The leaves are from 2 to 3 inches long, about 2/3 as wide, ovate, or oblong-ovate, serrate, acute, or short-acuminate, pubescent above, tomentose beneath, and on petioles from 1/2 to 1 inch in length.

Flower Color: The flowers are pink, sometimes fading to white, and very fragrant. The attractive flowers resemble the common apple bloom. Flowers scent the May landscape. Fruit is greenish and ripens in September.

Flower Size: The flowers are large (4 cm) fragrant, expanding with the leaves, of pale-rose color, and borne in subumbellate corymbs. The calyx-tube is urn-shaped, with limb 5-cleft; the pedicels and calyx villose-tomentose. Petals 5, roundish, or obovate, with short claws. Stamens numerous; styles 5, united, and villose at base.

Bloom Season: April-May

Fruit: 2.5-3 cm in diameter; like a small apple; yellow-green, maturing in late summer

Conditions: Moist soils in openings and borders of forests

 

[olena]

State Bird

Northern Mockingbird
Mimus polyglottos

Description 9-11" (23-28 cm). Robin-sized. A slender, long-tailed gray bird with white patches on wings and tail.
Voice A long series of musical and grating phrases, each repeated 3 or more times; often imitates other birds and regularly sings at night. Call a harsh chack.
Habitat Residential areas, city parks, farmlands, open country with thickets, and desert brush.
Nesting 3-5 blue-green eggs, spotted with brown, in a bulky cup of sticks and weed stems in a bush or low tree.
Range Breeds from northern California, eastern Nebraska, southern Ontario, and Maritime Canada southward. Winters in southern part of range.
Discussion This bird's beautiful song is richest on warm, moonlit nights in spring, when the bird may spend hours giving amazing imitations of other species. The songs of 36 other species were recognized from the recording of one mockingbird in Massachusetts. Birds in the western part of the species' range have less musical songs and are less imitative. Mockingbirds are strongly territorial and, like a number of other birds, will attack their reflection in a window, hubcap, or mirror, at times with such vigor that they injure or kill themselves. At mating time, the male Northern Mockingbird becomes increasingly exuberant, flashing his wings as he flies up in an aerial display, or singing while flying from one song post to another. After breeding, each parent establishes and vigorously defends its own winter territory. Mockingbirds require open grassy areas for their feeding; thick, thorny, or coniferous shrubs for hiding the nest; and high perches where the male can sing and defend his territory.

 

[olena]

State Mammal

White-tailed Deer
Odocoileus virginianus

Description Size varies greatly; a small to medium-size deer. Tan or reddish brown above in summer; grayish brown in winter. Belly, throat, nose band, eye ring, and inside of ears are white. Tail brown, edged with white above, often with dark stripe down center; white below. Black spots on sides of chin. Buck’s antlers have main beam forward, several unbranched tines behind, and a small brow tine; antler spread to 3' (90 cm). Doe rarely has antlers. Fawn spotted. Ht 27–45" (68–114 cm); L 6' 2"–7' (1.88–2.13 m); T 6–13" (15–33 cm); HF 19–20" (47.5–51.2 cm); Wt male 150–310 lb (68–141 kg), female 90–211 lb (41–96 kg).
Endangered Status Two subspecies of the White-tailed Deer are on the U.S. Endangered Species List. The Key Deer is classified as endangered in Florida, and the Columbian White-tailed Deer is classified as endangered in Washington and Oregon. The Key Deer declined in number as more and more of its habitat in the Florida Keys underwent development throughout the 20th century. Development continues to be a threat to the subspecies today. In 1961 the National Key Deer Refuge was established to protect the deer. The population has risen from a possible low of 25 animals in 1955 to about 250 to 300 today. The Columbian White-tailed Deer once ranged from Puget Sound to southern Oregon, where it lived in floodplain and riverside habitat. The conversion of much of its homeland to agriculture and unrestricted hunting reduced its numbers to a just a few hundred in the early 20th century. It now lives in a few scattered populations, and its numbers have climbed to over 6,000. Julia Butler Hansen Refuge for the Columbian Whitetail Deer provides critical habitat for these deer in southern Washington.

Similar Species Mule Deer has antlers with both main beams branching; tail tipped with black.
Breeding Reproductive season varies: first 2 weeks in November in north, January or February in south. 1–3 young born after gestation of about 6 1/2 months.
Habitat Farmlands, brushy areas, woods, and suburbs and gardens.
Range Southern half of southern tier of Canadian provinces; most of U.S., except far Southwest.
Discussion Although primarily nocturnal, the White-tailed Deer may be active at any time. It often moves to feeding areas along established trails, then spreads out to feed. The animal usually beds down near dawn, seeking concealing cover. This species is a good swimmer. The winter coat of the northern deer has hollow hair shafts, which fill with air, making the coat so buoyant that it would be difficult for the animal to sink should it become exhausted while swimming. The White-tailed Deer is also a graceful runner, with top speeds to 36 mph (58 km/h), although it flees to nearby cover rather than run great distances. This deer can make vertical leaps of 8 1/2 feet (2.6 m) and horizontal leaps of 30 feet (9 m). The White-tailed Deer grazes on green plants, including aquatic ones in the summer; eats acorns, beechnuts, and other nuts and corn in the fall; and in winter browses on woody vegetation, including the twigs and buds of viburnum, birch, maple, and many conifers. The four-part stomach allows the deer to feed on items that most other mammals cannot eat. It can obtain nutrients directly from the food, as well as nutrients synthesized by microbes in its digestive system. This deer eats 5 to 9 pounds (2.25–4 kg) of food per day and drinks water from rain, snow, dew, or a water source. When nervous, the White-tailed Deer snorts through its nose and stamps its hooves, a telegraphic signal that alerts other nearby deer to danger. If alarmed, the deer raises, or "flags," its tail, exhibiting a large, bright flash of white; this communicates danger to other deer and helps a fawn follow its mother in flight.There are two types of social grouping: the family group of a doe and her young, which remain together for nearly a year (and sometimes longer), and the buck group. The family group usually disbands just before the next birth, though occasionally two sets of offspring are present for short periods. Bucks are more social than does for most of the year, forming buck groups of three to five individuals; the buck group, which constantly changes and disbands shortly before the fall rut, is structured as a dominance hierarchy. Threat displays include stares, lowered ears, and head-up and head-down postures. Attacks involve kicking and, less commonly, rearing and flailing with the forefeet. Bucks and does herd separately most of the year, but in winter they may gather together, or "yard up." As many as 150 deer may herd in a yard. Yarding keeps the trails open through the movement of large groups of animals, and provides protection from predators. The leadership of the yards is matriarchal. Deer may occupy the same home range year after year, and may defend bedding sites, but otherwise are not territorial. The White-tailed Deer is less polygamous than other deer, and a few bucks mate with only one doe. The extended rutting season begins at about the time the male is losing his velvet, which varies with latitude. At this time, bucks are still in buck groups, and sparring for dominance increases. (Sparring consists of two deer trying to push each other backward.) The buck group then breaks up, and several bucks begin following a doe at a distance of 150 feet (50 m) or so. They follow the doe’s scent; the largest buck stays closest to the female. A buck attempts to dominate other bucks and may mate with several does over the breeding season. He produces "buck rubs" and also "scrapes," revisiting them regularly during the rut; glandular secretions are left on the rubs. Does visit the scrapes and urinate in them; bucks then follow the trails of the does. After the mating season, the doe returns to the subherd until spring (May or June in the North; January to March in the deep South). A young doe bred for the first time usually produces one fawn, but thereafter has twins and occasionally triplets if food is abundant. The female remains near the fawns, returning to feed them only once or twice a day. Twin fawns are separated, which serves to protect them. Weaning occurs between one and two and a half months. Fawns stay with the mother into the fall or winter, sometimes for up to two years, but the doe generally drives off her young of the previous year shortly before giving birth. The Whitetail’s first antlers are usually a single spike (the "spikehorn"). A three-year-old would be expected to have eight points, but there can be more or less, as the number of tines is influenced greatly by nutritional factors. A Whitetail’s age is determined not by the number of tines on its horns but by the wear on its teeth.
Once nearly exterminated in much of the Northeast and Midwest, this deer is now more abundant than ever, owing to hunting restrictions and the decline in number of its predators, wolves and the Mountain Lion. It has become the most plentiful game animal in eastern North America and is even something of a pest in many areas, eating garden plants and contributing to the spread of Lyme disease. Thinning the deer population is best done by hunting both does and bucks, as hunting bucks only alters the herd rather than reducing it.
There are two dwarf subspecies of White-tailed Deer: the Coues’ Deer, or Arizona Whitetail (O. v. couesi), of the Arizona desert, and the Key Deer (O. v. clavium) of the Big Pine Key area in the Florida Keys. The Coues’ Deer, which has somewhat enlarged ears and tail relative to the other Whitetails, reaches a maximum of about 100 pounds (45 kg). The tiny, dog-size Key Deer weighs 45-75 pounds (21-34 kg) or less. Some mammalogists classify the Key Deer as a separate species.

 

[olena]

State Tree

Longleaf Pine
Pinus palustris


Description Large tree with the longest needles and largest cones of any eastern pine and an open, irregular crown of a few spreading branches, 1 row added each year.
Height: 80-100' (24-30 m).
Diameter: 2-2 1/2' (0.6-0.8 m).
Needles: evergreen; mostly 10-15" (25-38 cm) long, on small plants to 18" (46 cm). Densely crowded, 3 in bundle; slightly stout, flexible; spreading to drooping; dark green.
Bark: orange-brown, furrowed into scaly plates; on small trunks, gray and rough.
Twigs: dark brown; very stout, ending in large white bud.
Cones: 6-10" (15-25 cm) long; narrowly conical or cylindrical; dull brown; almost stalkless; opening and shedding at maturity; cone-scales raised, keeled, with small prickle.
Habitat Well-drained sandy soils of flatlands and sandhills; often in pure stands.
Range Coastal Plain from SE. Virginia to E. Florida, and west to E. Texas. Usually below 600' (183 m); to 2000' (610 m) in foothills of Piedmont.
Discussion Longleaf Pine is a leading world producer of naval stores. The trees are tapped for turpentine and resin and then logged for construction lumber, poles and pilings, and pulpwood. Frequent fires caused by man or by lightning have perpetuated subclimax, pure stands of this species. The seedlings pass through a "grass" stage for a few years, in which the stem grows in thickness rather than height and the taproot develops rapidly. Later, the elongating, unbranched stem produces very long needles.

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[olena]

State Insect

Honey Bee
Apis mellifera
Description Male drone 5/8" (15-17 mm); queen 3/4" (18-20 mm); sterile female worker 3/8-5/8" (10-15 mm). Drone more robust with largest compound eyes; queen elongate with smallest compound eyes and larger abdomen; worker smallest. All mostly reddish brown and black with paler, usually orange-yellow rings on abdomen. Head, antennae, legs almost black with short, pale erect hair densest on thorax, least on abdomen. Wings translucent. Pollen basket on hind tibia.
Food Adult drinks nectar and eats honey. Larva feeds on honey and royal jelly, a white paste secreted by workers.
Life Cycle Complex social behavior centers on maintaining queen for full lifespan, usually 2 or 3 years, sometimes up to 5. Queen lays eggs at intervals, producing a colony of 60,000-80,000 workers, which collect, produce, and distribute honey and maintain hive. Workers feed royal jelly to queen continuously and to all larvae for first 3 days; then only queen larvae continue eating royal jelly while other larvae are fed bee bread, a mixture of honey and pollen. By passing food mixed with saliva to one another, members of hive have chemical bond. New queens are produced in late spring and early summer; old queen then departs with a swarm of workers to found new colony. About a day later the first new queen emerges, kills other new queens, and sets out for a few days of orientation flights. In 3-16 days queen again leaves hive to mate, sometimes mating with several drones before returning to hive. Drones die after mating; unmated drones are denied food and die.
Habitat Hives in hollow trees and hives kept by beekeepers. Workers visit flowers of many kinds in meadows, open woods, and gardens.
Range Worldwide.
Discussion Settlers brought the Honey Bee to North America in the 17th century. Today these bees are used to pollinate crops and produce honey. They are frequently seen swarming around tree limbs. Honey Bees are distinguished from bumble bees and bees in other families mostly by wing venation.

Previous Natural States
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Rhode Island
Utah
West Virginia

 

[Snowwark]

We certainly get lots of posts complaining about plant-eating deer, don't we Olena. I think they're so beautiful, elegant.

Didn't another state have the Honey Bee as their State insect also?

Thank you for this Heather, it's great stuff!