txdot is it illegal to pick bluebonnets?

Answer 1

only the lupin Texomas (misspelled I know) it is the official state flower. There are several others that look similar but are not the state flower...but you better know the difference. The easiest way is the Texomas is a much darker royal blue.

I know of a botinest who was charged with picking the state flower. When he was in court he proved that what he had picked looked similar but was not the official state flower of Texas. The judge dismissed the case.

Answer 2

I heard a story from a sheriff's deputy. They had a call about a guy picking bluebonnets on the side of the road. They got there and this guy had boxes and boxes of bluebonnets that he had been picking. Supposedly, he was going to sell them to some flowershop or something. They wanted to arrest him on the bluebonnet law but it turns out that it does not really exist. However, the Texas Department of Transportation spends a lot of money to spread bluebonnet seeds along the highways. That would make the bluebonnets property of the state and this guy was then destroying and/or stealing public property. The police got him to stop clearing out the bluebonnet patches by pointing this out to him.

Picking bluebonnets on your own land (or on someone else's land with the owners permission) is not against the law.

If someone still believes that picking bluebonnets is specifically against the law, then please provide the exact law and a state website that backs up that this law exists.


ADDED
Snopes has just covered this very legend.

http://www.snopes.com/legal/bluebonnets.asp

They confirm that there is no law in Texas against picking bluebonnets. However, you can run afoul of the law by picking bluebonnets from Texas Department of Transportation planted bluebonnet patches or by tresspassing to pick bluebonnets. However, in both of those cases it is not a matter of picking bluebonnets being illegal. It is breaking other laws such as destruction of private property or tresspassing.

Answer 3

Yeah but they get picked anyway. I used to like the ones on 290 near college station and the ones on the way to Austin. I miss texas.