Flowers, LANGUAGE OF.

Flowers, LANGUAGE OF. Around many flowers a consistent and well-understood symbolism has gathered, but the Orientals have developed this into a perfect vehicle for communicating sentimental and amatory expressions of all degrees of warmth. Still further complexity is added by the habit of employing flowers the Turkish or Arabic names of which rhyme with the other really significant words. 'There is no colour,' says Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 'no flower, no weed, no fruit, herb, pebble, or feather, that has not a verse belonging to it; and you may quarrel, reproach, or send letters of passion, friendship, or civility, or even of news, without even inking your fingers.' Our own floral symbolism is much more direct, simple, and really poetical, being nearer what is revealed to the inward eye of a Chaucer and a Wordsworth than all the whimsical and ingenious fancies of the East. Leav- ing aside all floral badges attached to particular families or clans; and all national heraldic associations, as of the rose with England, the thistle with Scotland, the shamrock with Ireland, the lily with the ancient crown of France; as well as all special historical signification arbitrarily attached to any flower, as the red and white roses of Lancaster and York, Napoleon's violet, or Lord Beaconsfield's primrose; we may say that everywhere the laurel is the symbol of glory: the olive, of peace: the rose, of love and beauty: the violet, of faithfulness: the daisy and white violet, of innocence: the rosemary, of remembrance: the amaranth, of immortality: the asphodel, of death and the unseen world: the weeping-willow, yew, and cypress, of mourning. So surely as the orange-blossom is proper to marriage does the finding of white heather betoken good-fortune to come, while the future chances of love may be revealed from the marguerite and poppy by a simple method of divination. Again, the almond expresses hope: the lily of the valley, unconscious sweetness: the white Julienne and the wallflower, love faithful in spite of adversity: the anemone, sickness: the primrose, early youth: the cyclamen, diffidence: and the arum or wake-robin, ardour. The turnip is strangely said to symbolise charity, while more naturally the young Persian offers his affection by the gift of a tulip. Neither the baneful properties attached to some plants, as the hemlock, belladonna, and mandrake; nor the magical qualities of the rue, the rowan, the elder, the thorn, the mistletoe, vervain, or valerian, fall to be discussed here; nor yet the old doctrine of Signature (q.v.), according to which plants bore certain marks indicating for what diseases they were medicinally useful. See John Ingram's Flora Symbolica: Language and Sentiment of Flowers (1882). For Flower-lore, see PLANT-LORE.