flower image : Texas Drought Kills Bluebonnets' Bloom, Hurts Tourism Industry

The Bluebonnet Trails Festival is the year's biggest tourist draw in Ennis, Texas. The 2006 event will take place over the weekend, and officials in the Dallas suburb are concerned it will be a bust.

``We're hoping to have the same type of attendance, but we are being realistic,'' said Gina Rokas, tourism director for the Ennis Convention & Visitors Bureau. ``The flowers aren't as good this year.''

Bluebonnets, the state's official flower, line miles of highway each March and April and bring tourists out to festivals in at least 10 towns. A statewide drought and unseasonably warm weather resulted in fewer of the violet-blue buds and smaller plants this year.

``It hasn't been quite the show it's been in years past,'' said Doug Welsh, a horticulture professor at Texas A&M University in College Station. ``It has been a very dry winter, which has reduced our bluebonnet population significantly.''

The smaller crop may cost cities some big money. Ennis, a city of 19,000 people that's 35 miles south of Dallas, attracts 50,000 visitors in the two-week peak season, City Manager Steve Howerton said. The tourism generates as much as $500,000 a year in revenue for the city, which has an annual budget of $20 million, he said.

As few as 150 people a day are picking up maps of trails usually lined with the flowers, down from 200 to 300 in past years, Rokas said. As many as 700 came each day in 2003, considered a banner year for bluebonnets, she said.

Travel Counselors

Bluebonnets ``are one way Texans are identified by the rest of the world,'' said Damon Waitt, senior botanist with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas. ``I'd almost put it on the level of the four-leaf clover with Ireland.''

The flowers grow wild in Texas, and the Transportation Department sows 33,000 pounds of wildflower seed along 79,000 miles of highways each year. The state has a Web site and an 800 number with bilingual ``travel counselors'' to guide tourists to the displays.

Lady Bird Johnson, widow of former President Lyndon Baines Johnson, spurred the planting of wildflowers along roads to stem soil erosion. Her efforts led to the federal Highway Beautification Act of 1965, and she established the center bearing her name.

President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, both raised in Texas, grow bluebonnets at the White House and at their ranch in Crawford, Texas. Bush's mother, former First Lady Barbara Bush, also cultivated them at the White House and has a variety of sky-blue bluebonnets named after her.

Winter Drought

Texas has selected no fewer than five varieties of bluebonnets as the official flower. Images of the blooms appear on everything from license plates to bumper stickers and coffee mugs. The Bluebonnet Award is given annually to the best book, as selected by the state's third through sixth graders, and the Texas Library Association will hand out this year's prize next week.

``You're not really a Texan unless you've had your baby picture taken in the bluebonnets,'' said Jerry Parsons, a San Antonio horticulturist who has worked with the blooms for about 20 years. ``It's such a part of Texas tradition.''

Bluebonnet seeds, soybean-like pods that germinate in the fall and winter, didn't receive enough water to thrive this year because of the drought.

The state had its third-driest November and December on record last year, according to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. Governor Rick Perry declared a statewide disaster as more than 10,000 fires burned about 4 million acres between the end of December and mid-March.

Busiest Season

East and north-central Texas had severe or extreme droughts between September and February, according to the state's Water Development Board. The affected regions include the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Tyler and Wichita Falls.

Flowers in central Texas suffered less damage. About 20,000 to 24,000 people attended a three-day festival in Burnet, which has a population of 4,900. A festival in Chappell Hill, with fewer than 300 residents, drew 12,000 to 14,000 visitors.

Enthusiasts are packing the Lady Bird Johnson center and Wildseed Farms, the largest U.S. working wildflower-seed farm. The farm, about 80 miles west of Austin near Fredericksburg, plants flowers on 400 to 500 acres to harvest the seed.

``We get 300,000 visitors to our farm each year, and most of the visitors are in bluebonnet season in April,'' said John Thomas, the farm's owner. ``I've probably got 50 to 100 people right now taking pictures of their dogs, children or brides.''

Wildseed sells 40,000 to 60,000 pounds of bluebonnet seeds each year, and the state transportation department is among its customers. Bluebonnets are the company's most popular flowers.

Indian Legend

Even though the conditions weren't right for bluebonnets this year, that doesn't mean the plants are gone forever.

``Bluebonnet seed can lay dormant in the soil for up to 25 years and still have enough seed to germinate and make a good wildflower show,'' Parsons said.

Legend has it that bluebonnets first appeared as a sign of a drought's end. According to a Comanche tale, retold in a children's book by Tomie DePaola, an orphaned American Indian girl sacrificed a doll, her most valued possession, to end the drought. The bluebonnets appeared the next morning.


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