News
The Cherokee Rose, Georgia’s State Flower, Actually Has Nothing to Do With the Cherokee People—or the State
The flower comes from East Asia and symbolizes a story of memory, myth and displacement. Now, there’s a movement afoot to choose a new, native state symbol.
By Ryan Krugman
As Tony Harris walks through his garden, he stops beside a young sapling, its thin branches stretching upward into the early spring air. In a few years, he says, it will bloom with fragrant white flowers the size of a fist.