MEMaine State Symbols

Maine picked a conifer cone as its state flower, which tells you how completely the eastern white pine defines the place. The white pine cone and tassel was adopted in 1895, decades before the tree itself became official in 1945, and it is the only state floral emblem in the country that is not a flower. Tall white pines were cut here for Royal Navy masts before the Revolution, the tree gave Maine the nickname Pine Tree State, and a pine sits at the center of the shield on the flag.

Official state symbols

What is on the Maine state flag

The current Maine flag, adopted in 1909, is a blue field carrying the state coat of arms. At the center is a shield showing a moose lying at the foot of a white pine, with water behind it. Two figures hold the shield up. On the left stands a farmer resting on a scythe, for agriculture. On the right stands a seaman leaning on an anchor, for shipping and fishing. Above the shield is the North Star with the word DIRIGO on a ribbon. Beneath the shield, on its own banner, is the state name.

The North Star and the motto work together. Dirigo is Latin for "I lead" or "I direct," and Polaris is the star sailors steer by, so the pairing casts Maine as the fixed point others navigate toward. Before 1909 Maine flew a different flag entirely: a buff-colored field with a single green pine tree and a blue five-pointed star, used from 1901. That older banner has become a merchandise favorite, and in November 2024 Maine voters were asked in a statewide referendum whether to bring it back as the official flag. They voted no, so the coat-of-arms flag stands.

The seal and Maine's most local symbols

Maine's seal, adopted in 1820 when Maine separated from Massachusetts under the Missouri Compromise, uses the same coat of arms that later moved onto the flag. Every element is an industry: pine for timber, moose for the northern woods, scythe for farming, anchor for the sea. The state has kept picking symbols the same way. The Maine coon, a heavy-coated longhaired cat that developed in New England barns and harbors, became the state cat in 1985. The schooner Bowdoin, built in East Boothbay in 1921 for Arctic exploration and still sailing, became the official state vessel in 1987.

Symbols that surprise people

• The state flower is a pine cone. Adopted in 1895, the white pine cone and tassel is a conifer's reproductive structure, not a flowering plant, making Maine's floral emblem unique among the fifty states.
• Maine's official soft drink is Moxie. Named in 2005, Moxie is a sharply bitter soda first sold in the 1880s as a patent medicine, and Lisbon Falls holds an annual festival for it.
• There is a state treat and a separate state dessert. In 2011 the legislature made the whoopie pie the official state treat and blueberry pie made with wild Maine blueberries the official state dessert, after a debate over which one deserved the higher title.
• The state fossil is a 390-million-year-old plant. Pertica quadrifaria, adopted in 1985, is an early land plant found in Devonian rock in Baxter State Park country.
• Tourmaline is a Maine mine product. Made state mineral in 1971, tourmaline is quarried in western Maine, and the Mount Mica deposit near Paris was one of the first gem tourmaline finds in North America.

Neighboring states and more Maine pages