Flora

Flora, an ancient Italian deity, the Roman goddess of flowers and vegetable productiveness, also of exuberant youthful vitality. At Rome she had two temples, one on the Quirinal, the other near the Circus Maximus. On the occasion of her festival (Floralia), held in the end of April, the dwellings were decked with flowers, whilst feasting, with dance and song, prevailed everywhere. Flora was represented as a flower-crowned maiden in the full bloom of maidenly beauty.—Flora is used botanically to designate the collective plants or vegetable species of a region, country, or district, cryptogamic as well as Phanerogamous, or to any work containing a descriptive enumeration of these.