Texas is the only state in the union and the only place in the world good enough for the glorious Bluebonnet; it grows naturally nowhere else outside the borders of Texas.

The Bluebonnet actually favors Texas by growing in many colors of the rainbow including different hues of Abbot pink and brilliant dazzling Albino white.

Naturalist Carroll Abbot – known to many as Mr. Bluebonnet – lobbied the Extension horticulturists at Texas A&M University to isolate, purify and grow the flowers for seed harvest in large numbers. The lobbying effort of Mr. Bluebonnet – while he was terminally ill – has produced a multi-million agricultural industry that employs hundreds and involves thousands of people. Texas A&M has harvested the wonderful publicity and is regularly generating new knowledge of wildflowers and producing new strains.

The University is working hard to develop commercially available seed to grow flowers in blue, white and red to represent the Texas state flag colors. Without doubt, proud Texans would plant in yards, fields and gardens the different strains in the pattern necessary to display the great flag of the state of Texas.

The locations of blue Bluebonnets were, of course, well-known. White Bluebonnets were rare but much sought after by naturalists, artists and photographers as a contrast in a field of blue Bluebonnets.

Pink Bluebonnets are much rarer and some naturalists look their whole life and find no more than a handful. Searchers looked for large populations of pink Bluebonnets indicating that the blue had been bred out. Eventually, four large deposits of pink Bluebonnets were located with the largest centered within the city limits of San Antonio. At that point, Texas A&M located and added the gene source to the color pool. The rare pink Bluebonnet was named after Mr. Bluebonnet himself; the “Abbot Pink.”