The choice of the mistletoe for our state flower never has been popular with some of our citizens. Former University of Oklahoma President George L.Cross, a botanist, was among those who did not think a parasite was appropriate.
(We had the state flower, officially our floral emblem, before we had a state. The Oklahoma Territory adopted the mistletoe in 1893, fourteen years before statehood, and the state picked it up in 1907. We also have a state wild flower, the Indian blanket.)
As the Oklahoma City author Pendleton Woods has pointed out, the debate over the mistletoe was never in the same league controversially as the redbud, our state tree. Woods ran down the story for the Winter 2001-2002 War Chief, publication of the Indian Territory Posse of Oklahoma Westerners.
The redbud as state flower became an international issue. It was the idea of Mrs. Virgil (Mamie Lee) Browne, who earlier had organized the International Rotary Anns with the first chapter in Oklahoma City, her hometown.
She wanted the redbud blossom to become Oklahoma's state flower. When she learned we already had a state flower she switched to the redbud for state tree. She had already obtained newspaper publicity for her favorite tree by urging that more of them be planted and that blooms be left on the trees so everybody could enjoy them.
Her campaign came during the administration of E.W. Marland of Ponca City, governor from 1935 to 1939. State Sen. Nat Taylor of Strong City in Roger Mills County introduced the redbud legislation.
It immediately ran into opposition. Many citizens nominated other trees. (I would have favored the pecan). Some said the redbud was not big enough to be a state tree. However, the legislation cleared both houses and went to the governor.
The real controversy started before Marland had a chance to study the proposal. Mrs. Roberta Lawson of Tulsa, first vice president of the Federated Women's Clubs, told the governor by telegram that the redbud was the Judas Tree that Judas Iscariot used to hang himself after he betrayed Christ.
"Although the Bible does not name the tree," Woods wrote, "there had later crept into Judas-lore a famed, odd detail: that Judas hanged himself upon a flowering tree whose blossoms turned red in shame. Thus some had called the redbud the Judas Tree.
The state dean of the Episcopal Church agreed with Mrs. Browne that the tree was not named in the Bible. An Oklahoman who was a native of Jerusalem said he had never heard of a redbud tree back home.
Newspaper stories and editorials appeared all over the United States and in some foreign countries. Newsweek and Time magazines carried stories on the debate. Marland eventually signed the bill.
Edgar Guest, a popular syndicated newspaper poet, wrote a poem, "The Judas Tree." Its final stanza:
"And yet if true the story ring,/By chance or by intent,/Then Judas chose a glorious thing/To be his monument."
