The District has an official flower (American Beauty Rose), tree (Scarlet Oak), and bird (Wood Thrush). But oversight of oversights, we don’t have an official fruit.

WJLA is reporting that the D.C. Council will consider a measure tomorrow to name an official fruit for the District, placing us alongside 26 other states with similar designations. Word has it that local elementary school students pointed out the omission to members of the council, who, recognizing future voters when they saw them, jumped into action. The students were asked to look into the matter further (isn’t that what staffers are for?), with council chair Linda Cropp laying out the following guidelines:

…because of its abundance in the jurisdiction, its popularity in the jurisdiction, or for its symbolic meaning.

And so tomorrow alliances will be made and broken, votes traded, and money liberally spent to find the one fruit that will for eternity stand for the District.

So which will they choose? None of the good ones, apparently, since other states have selfishly appropriated those. Georgia has the peach, Oregon the pear, Florida the orange, Louisiana the strawberry, California the grape, and New York the apple, to mention a few examples. Tennessee got itself the tomato, probably just to catch people saying, “Hey, isn’t that a vegetable?”

In related news, the lease for the new stadium isn’t yet done, but, you know, priorities.