VAVirginia State Symbols

The flowering dogwood does double duty in Virginia. It was named the state flower in 1918 and the state tree in 1956, which puts Virginia in the small group of states where one species holds both titles. The choice drew little argument because the dogwood blooms right across the state in April, from the Tidewater counties up into the Blue Ridge. The motto is the symbol that needs more explaining. Sic semper tyrannis, "thus always to tyrants," was cut into the state seal in 1776 while Virginia was in open revolt against the Crown, and it has stayed on the seal and the flag unchanged ever since.

Official state symbols

The nickname predates all of it. Charles II is credited with calling Virginia his old dominion after the Restoration, a nod to the colony having stayed loyal to the Crown during the English Civil War, and Virginians have used the phrase for themselves ever since.

What is on the Virginia state flag

A deep blue field with the obverse of the state seal in a white circle at the centre, and nothing else. That makes Virginia one of the "seal on a bedsheet" flags, but the seal itself is unusually dramatic. It shows Virtus, the Roman spirit of virtue, dressed as an Amazon warrior in a blue tunic, spear in one hand and a sheathed sword in the other. She stands with one foot on the chest of Tyranny, who lies on his back with a broken chain, a fallen crown beside his head and a scourge still in his grip. The motto Sic semper tyrannis runs below on a scroll, and a wreath of Virginia creeper rings the whole design. The convention adopted the flag in 1861, and the design was standardised by statute in 1930. Virtus is depicted with one breast bare in the classical style, which makes Virginia's the only US state flag showing partial nudity.

The seal and the men who designed it

Virginia's Revolutionary convention appointed a committee in July 1776 to produce a seal: George Mason, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee and Robert Carter Nicholas. Wythe, the classicist of the group and later Thomas Jefferson's law teacher, is generally credited with the Virtus design and the motto. The reverse of the seal, which most people never see, carries three more Roman figures: Libertas holding a wand and liberty cap, Aeternitas with a globe and phoenix, and Ceres with a stalk of wheat and a cornucopia, over the word Perseverando, "by persevering." The phrase Sic semper tyrannis became notorious in April 1865 when John Wilkes Booth, a man who had briefly served in a Virginia militia unit, shouted it after shooting Lincoln. Virginia never considered changing it.

Symbols that surprise people

• Virginia has an official state boat. The Chesapeake Bay deadrise, the V-bottomed workboat used by watermen for crabbing and oystering, was designated in 1988.
• The state fossil is named after Thomas Jefferson. Chesapecten jeffersonius is a scallop from Virginia's coastal plain and was the first fossil from North America to be illustrated in a scientific publication, in 1687.
• The state dog traces back to Mount Vernon. The American foxhound was named in 1966, and George Washington bred the line at Mount Vernon from English hounds crossed with French hounds sent to him by Lafayette.
• The old state song was retired rather than replaced. "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" was set aside in 1997 and given emeritus status over its lyrics, leaving Virginia with no state song until 2015, when the legislature adopted two at once.
• There is an official state bat. The Virginia big-eared bat, an endangered subspecies that roosts in limestone caves in the state's south-west, was designated in 2005.
• "Virginia is for Lovers" is a slogan, not a motto. It was written for a 1969 tourism campaign and has no legal standing next to Sic semper tyrannis.

Neighbouring states' symbols

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