P101 -
State Birds & Flowers
This beautiful poster was inspired by the
stamps issued by the United States Postal
Service in 1982, which quickly became the
best-selling ones in American history.
You would expect the state bird of
Maryland to be the Baltimore oriole and you
can understand New Mexico being represented
by the road-runner, but why did dry,
land-locked Utah choose the California
seagull? It was because in 1848, the gulls
saved the early settlers from starvation by
eating up the Rocky Mountain locusts that
were destroying their crops. The fifty
states are listed alphabetically. Each bird
and flower is identified by both its common
and its scientific name.
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