Utah state symbols

How to read it

Utah Code § 63G-1-601 lists them: “Utah’s state bird is the sea gull”, the state flower is the sego lily, the state motto is “Industry” and the state tree is the quaking aspen. The Utah State Library gives the dates, and the Utah History Encyclopedia agrees on the years. The California gull, Larus californicus, was selected by an act of 1955, signed on February 16 according to the Library and on February 14 (House Bill 51) according to the Encyclopedia; the Library notes that the code itself calls it the sea gull. The sego lily, Calochortus nuttalli, was declared the state floral emblem by an act approved on March 18, 1911. “Industry” became the state motto on March 4, 1959, though the word had been on the state seal since the first legislature in 1896. The beehive became the state emblem the same day.

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The blue spruce and the aspen

The quaking aspen, Populus tremuloides, is the newer tree. S.B. 41 of the 2014 General Session struck “blue spruce” from the law and wrote in “quaking aspen”, and the State Library says the aspen replaced the Colorado blue spruce, state tree since 1933, and officially became the state tree on May 13, 2014.