Lajes das Flores Municipality (Portugal)

Last modified: 2010-12-03 by antónio martins
Keywords: lajes das flores | coat of arms (cow) | hydrangea | hortensia | cow (black and white) | goshawk (black) | quina | waves: 4 |
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• About the flag
• Version without the coat of arms
• Presentation of Lajes das Flores LGF

• Municipalities of Portugal
• Portugal

• Page about the municipal flag and coat of arms of Lajes das Flores at Sérgio Horta’s website (in Portuguese).
  reported by Jorge Candeias, 29 Feb 1999
• Page about Lajes das Flores at the Portuguese Municipalities’s Association website (incl. image of the arms)
  reported by António Martins, 18 Nov 2001
• Lajes das Flores, at the English Wikipedia
  reported by António Martins, 20 Oct 2007

About the flag

It is a fairily typical portuguese municipal flag, with the coat of arms centered on a quartered background (town status) of white and blue. Flag and arms adopted and published in the official journal Diário do Governo : II Série in 1960.05.30, an unusually late date.
António Martins, 20 Oct 2007

Coat of arms

The arms are Gules on a mound wavy of four Vert and Argent a cow Argent spootted Sable collared and belled Or between two hortensia flowers Proper leved Vert and in chief a goshawk Sable emphasised Or holding an escutcheon Azure charged with five plates Argent set in saltire. Mural crown argent with four visible towers (town rank) and white scroll reading in black upper case letters "Lajes das Flores".
António Martins, 20 Oct 2007

Version without the coat of arms

Plain (monocolored) portuguese subnational flags are not allowed to have armless variations: plain flags always carry the coat of arms.
Jorge Candeias, 18 Jul 1999

Presentation of Lajes das Flores

Lajes das Flores municipality had 1592 inhabitants in 2001 and consists of 7 communes covering 69,59 km², taking up the southern half of Flowers’ Island (Flores). It is part of Azores Region (also a NUTS II and traditional province), former Horta District. "Lajes das Flores" means "flagstones of Flores", the former being the natural kind, made from lava flows and the latter for the municipality location.

The arms show two introduced life forms that become ubiquitous in Azores: Milk cows and hortensias (Hydrangea macrophylla); the later are blazoned “proper” but this plant is known to present petal color variance according to the soil pH, ranging from red to blue — those represented in the arms are purplish blue (acidic soil).

Neither Lajes das Flores municipality nor Lajes do Pico municipality are home to Lajes Field, the Portuguese Air Base nº4 leased to the United States Air Force 65th Air Base Wing — which is located in Praia da Vitória municipality in Terceira Island.

António Martins, 20 Oct 2007

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