Given that a big reason for having official state crap in the first place is to call attention to what the state’s adopted as “official,” it’s a little surprising to me that all U.S. state (and territorial) legislatures don’t already have me on a mailing list announcing new developments. My understanding is that of the 55 such bodies, the number that keep me informed of such things is currently zero, which is a rate of approximately zero percent.

This makes no sense to me. But it does explain why I’m just now informing you that since January 1 of this year, the bigberry manzanita (Arctostaphylos glauca) has been California’s official state shrub.

Now, you may be saying, “that’s a tree, not a shrub,” but that just shows you haven’t spent nearly four minutes researching the difference between a tree and a shrub like I just did. It doesn’t take long to learn, though, that there may not be a difference at least in scientific terms, or at least no clear-cut difference that applies across the board. It’s more of a … woody-plant-continuum deal.

There does seem to be general agreement on two things. First, trees are taller than shrubs, or as the U.S. National Park Service put it, “shrubs are smaller than trees.” Second, trees have one stem (the trunk); shrubs have more. See, e.g., Theophrastus, Enquiry Into Plants, Book I, 3:1–3 (c. 350 B.C.E.) (Sir Arthur Hort, trans., London 1916) (“A tree is a thing which springs from the root with a single stem… A shrub is a thing which rises from the root with many branches….”). Or at least they usually are. As a slightly more recent source (Wikipedia) puts it, some shrubs may have single stems that are trunk-like, and some trees “can grow in multiple-stemmed forms while being tall enough to be trees.” And as Theowhatsis pointed out, some plants “under cultivation appear to become different and depart from their essential nature,” so that shrubs can become tree-like and some trees get shrubby. Enquiry Into Plants, Book I, 3:3–5. “For these reasons then, … one must not make a too-precise definition,” because the plants don’t cooperate. Id. Other smartasses who have looked into the tree-shrub distinction have gotten similar results: it’s hard to define a “shrub,” but you know it when you see it.

All of which means California will get away with calling this thing a “shrub,” which it does in the legislation and on official websites. And that avoids, or at least mutes, the potential awkwardness that arises from California already having an official tree (the redwood). Of course, legislatures routinely get around this kind of problem, mainly by not caring whether what they’re doing makes any sense. For example, Alabama has an official insect, which is a butterfly, but that didn’t stop it from adopting an official butterfly, which is also an insect. There are many other examples.

So, you may be asking, why this shrub? Well, because reasons. But you should be asking, why any shrub? Did California really need an official shrub? That very question was raised by the lucky legislative staffers tasked with analyzing the proposed official-shrub legislation, AB 581. As a March 2025 memo noted, the bigberry manzanita is great and all. It’d be perfectly fine as an official shrub. But California already has lots of official symbols, the memo pointed out. “So, do we need a shrubbery?” It continued, now crying out in italics, “The Committee may wish to consider, at what point does adding additional symbols make the designation meaningless?” Even if we do need another symbol, there are other, less time-consuming ways to do this, like passing resolutions. “The Committee may wish to consider whether legislation is the most appropriate mechanism to provide recognition to any potential symbol?“

The Committee did not, nor did the Legislature as a whole. Or, if it did consider these questions, it decided unanimously that the answers were Never and Yes respectively. Not a single vote was cast against the official-shrub legislation anywhere along the line, and the Governor signed it into law. Hence, official shrub.

In general I have been on the fence about official state crap. On the one hand, it’s mostly ridiculous. On the other hand, it’s … mostly ridiculous, and I like ridiculous things. And what’s the harm? Well, the italicizer does have a point (two, actually). The more official symbols you have, the less significant each one is. Plus, using legislation for this means various requirements kick in, and those can be time-consuming and expensive, at least more so than with simple resolutions. And frankly, having now gone back to look at the relevant chapter of California’s code, it seems like maybe things are getting a little out of control.

At the time I first wrote about California’s official state crap, it had 29 official things. See “Official State Crap: California” (May 20, 2013) (mentioning 22, never having promised to mention every one, okay?). The first one adopted by statute was a bird, in 1943. (The state flag and seal predate that, but weren’t adopted by statute until the 1950s.) So during the seven decades before my article, California had adopted 29 official things, for an average of one every 2.4 years. In the one decade (or so) since then, it has adopted nineteen more. The rate has almost quadrupled. And as the legislative analyses point out, this doesn’t include the proposals that didn’t pass (e.g., no official cryptid—yet).

Not that the additions aren’t important. California now also has an official crustacean, seashell, slug, bat, mushroom, dinosaur, sport, lichen, fabric, amphibian, snake, Poppy Day, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and LGBTQ Vietnam Veterans Memorial, in addition to no fewer than four official nuts and one (1) official shrub. But it is starting to seem fair to ask whether the time devoted to so many official adoptions is worthwhile. God forbid they should stop, but using resolutions instead of litigation is starting to seem like a good idea.

And if you’re going to do legislation, at least put in the work required to pick one official nut. You can’t have four official nuts. That’s just laziness.