Tuesday marks the last day to vote in the WildflowerNYC, a competition to establish an official wildflower of the Big Apple.
The competition to find a flower to represent the city kicked off in March in line with a greater movement aimed at highlighting the importance of native ecosystems and plants. As part of the contest, one institution in every borough has nominated a plant. To represent the Bronx, the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) selected the Spicebush.
“The competition is really about choosing native plants,” said James Boyer, New York Botanical Garden’s vice president for children’s education. “The Spicebush is, and would have been a very common understory shrub plant before Hudson sailed down the Hudson River. We just felt like this was a really great representation for what a native forest would have looked like — very similar to what we still have on our 50-acre grounds.”
Part of the uniqueness of the plant comes from its distinct smell, which can be inhaled by crushing the flower. Spicebush blossoms in the spring, but can be found year-round in the Bronx within NYBG’s 50-acre growth forest — where there is a trail called the Spicebush trail, which overlooks the Bronx River, New York City’s only freshwater river.
Preserving and documenting New York’s native flora is an ongoing mission at the Botanical Garden. NYBG, which has been recognized on the National Registry of Historic Places since 1967, launched its Ecoflora community science project in 2016 in an effort to better record and conserve the city’s biodiversity.
For Boyer, nominating Spicebush is part of this ongoing effort to bring awareness to the importance of native flora.
The city has already lost 40% of its native plants because of development, according to the NYC Wildflower Week website. Maintaining native flora is key to preserving existing landscapes, while also improving biodiversity.
“It would bring awareness — to people respecting native plants and respective native ecosystems, choosing native plants, especially if they’re putting them into gardens,” Boyer said. “There’s this whole movement in horticulture and in some ecology to bring back native ecosystems, and the way you do that is by bringing back native plants, and then the native insects come back.”
For the competition, Brooklyn nominated the northeast native plant Wild Columbine, Manhattan selected the Butterfly Weed and Queens nominated the Giant Sunflower. Staten Island, the only borough that already has an official wildflower, picked the Pinxter Azalea.
“I would like to thank all who voted for New York City’s first-ever official wildflower,” said Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson. “The competition was tough with one nomination coming from each borough, including our very own New York Botanical Garden’s nomination — the Spicebush. Thank you to Wildflower NYC for creating this competition to showcase NYC’s flora. We look forward to celebrating the winner later this week.”
WildflowerNYC began as an initiative of NYC Wildflower Week — a group that focuses on highlighting the native flora of New York City — as a way to complement current park, health and nature civic initiatives by the borough presidents that aim to highlight and aid New York City’s native plants.
In tandem with the wildflower competition, WildflowerNYC is also hosting plant walks in every borough. For Marielle Anzelone, the director of NYC Wildflower Week, part of the goal of the competition is to reconnect New Yorkers to their surrounding natural environment.
“The goal of WildflowerNYC is to help restore the relationship between New Yorkers and their native flora,” Anzelone said.
New Yorkers can vote for their favorite wildflower online at wildflowernyc.org. After a winner is chosen, legislation will be proposed to the New York City Council to make the selected wildflower the official flower of the city.
Anzelone said the winner will be announced on Nov. 9.
“We’re picking a plant that is native, that’s emblematic of the Bronx, and that has flowers — they’re just not super huge and showy,” Boyer said. “It’s a great representation of the Bronx. It’s a tough plant and one that has been here for a long time.”
This article was updated on Nov. 8 at 11:48 a.m. to include a comment from Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson.
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