STATE FLOWER: We can all vouch for the beauty of our state
flowers, the mountain laurel. When it blooms in abundance in late
June, particularly along highways such as Route 59 in the Allegheny
National Forest, it’s breathtaking.

But it also has ecological values.

That’s the word today from the folks at the U.S. Forest Service
who point out that a wide range of wildlife make use of this
colorful cover:

Animals that associate with mountain laurel include white-tailed
deer, eastern screech owl, black bear, ruffed grouse, turkeys,
snowshoe hare, and song birds. Black bears are known to den in
“ground nests” in mountain-laurel thickets. Snowshoe hare, ruffed
grouse, and warblers hide in the dense thickets. Many a hunter has
waited in anticipation just outside a clearing in the laurel for a
tom turkey to “spit and drum” close enough for a shot.

Mountain laurel’s leaves, buds, flowers, and fruits are
poisonous, and may be lethal to livestock and humans, but
white-tailed deer, eastern cottontails, black bear, and ruffed
grouse are known to eat mountain-laurel in the winter or during
years of food shortages, according to the Forest Service.

Mountain laurel is noted for preventing water runoff and soil
erosion on mountain hillsides. Researchers in the southern
Appalachian Mountains found that excessive cutting of dense stands
of mountain laurel greatly increased the amount of water
runoff.

The leaf litter of mountain laurel contains higher than normal
levels of minerals than forest trees. The leaf litter contributes
nutrients back to the forest soil as the leaves decompose. Mountain
laurel is dependent on mycorrhizal fungus associated with its root
system in the soil; mycorrhizal means a fungus and root association
where the fungus helps the roots, and the roots help the fungus.
The mycorrhizal fungus association of mountain laurel helps the
laurel obtain water and minerals from even the nutrient-poor,
acidic soil of the Allegheny Plateau.

The wood of mountain laurel has a long history of uses by native
and Euro-Americans. It has been used in the manufacturing of pipes,
wreaths, roping, furniture, bowls, utensils, and other household
goods and novelties.

In case you were wondering, Gov. Pinchot made the mountain
laurel the state flower on May 5, 1933, according to the press
release.

And that, of course, makes it illegal to pick mountain laurel in
Pennsylvania.