CHAPPELL HILL, Tex. — It is bluebonnet season in Texas, when hayfields and grazing pastures are transformed into seas of indigo bloom. And while Vermonters take pride in their fall foliage and Washingtonians love their cherry blossoms, Texans can be near fanatical about bluebonnets, sometimes ignoring property laws and personal safety to wade into their fragrant midst.

“It’s like a feeding frenzy every spring,” said Damon Waitt, a botanist and senior director at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin. “Every parent in Texas must have at least one picture of their kids in the bluebonnets, so you’ll see dotting the hillsides little baby butt prints where the flowers have been smooshed down.”

And because 92 percent of the land in Texas is privately owned, bluebonnet season is also trespassing season. “It’s weird when you drive down the road and see all these people jumping over fences,” said George Dillingham, a real estate broker in Brenham, which is about halfway between Houston and Austin. “It’s amazing — people feel like they have some sort of legal access just because there are bluebonnets.”

Indigenous to Texas, the bluebonnet was adopted as the state flower in 1901. It is a member of the legume family, genus Lupinus, and grows low to the ground, with stems sprouting conical clusters of tiny blue flowers that resemble prairie bonnets. April is peak blooming season, and thanks to statewide seeding efforts that began in the 1930s by the Texas Highway Department, bluebonnets grow abundantly along roadsides and have infiltrated much of the adjoining land.