Language of Flowers Program Recap

Thank you to Layce Gebhard from the Rutgers Master Gardeners of Hunterdon County for a very apt presentation on the cultural significance of flowers and how flowers have been used to convey messages.  Flowers have played significant roles in many cultures throughout the centuries, dating back to antiquity.  The use of flowers in works of art and cultural practices continues to evolve, with a notable increase in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  So let’s dive into the “language of flowers” and see how seemingly ordinary plants can have extraordinary meaning.

Some History

The use of flowers in language, culture, and the arts dates back thousands of years.  The ancient Egyptians believed that divine power was contained in the scent of a flower and used blue water lilies to fragrance engravings.  The ancient Greeks started associating different plants with different gods and created mythical figures to try and explain the beauty of flowers.  With the decline of ancient Greece and the emergence of ancient Rome, garlands and flowered laurels became very popular.  Imperial Rome made extravagant use of flowers, particularly roses, in celebrations and decorations.  However, with the fall of Rome and the rise of Christianity, the use of flowers in art and culture entered a dark age.

Early Christians regarded the use of flowers as decadent and a reminder of the oppression of Rome.  For much of the Dark and Middle Ages, flowers were simply used for medicinal purposes.  However, as the Renaissance began, so did the reemergence of flowers in culture and art, particularly their association with beauty.  New books and genres were created with flowers at the focus and the study of botany broke away from the medical field as a separate and distinct science.  It is out of these developments that the use of flowers as a tool for communication broke onto the scene in the Victorian era.

Floriography

Floriography relates to the process of communicating through floral arrangements.  The roots of floriography derive from a game in the eighteenth century Turkish court called “selam”, where females in the court’s harem would replace words with the names of flowers and other objects so that the guards would not be able to understand what they were talking about.  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the English ambassador to Turkey, brought this practice back to England in the second half of the eighteenth century, where it would evolve into the use of floral arrangements to convey secret messages as well as personal feelings.

The Victorian era became so enamored with flowers and their use for communication that the nineteenth century saw an explosion of floral dictionaries, used primarily by the upper class to help send and decode secret messages through the use of floral arrangements.  Women would even attend courses to learn how to communicate through floriography.  The popularity of this practice coincided with the elevation of botany, resulting in the creation and spread of conservatories and private gardens.  Street markets also became widely popular where members of the upper class could peruse a wide variety of flowers to buy for use in their arrangements.

Also during this time, originated the use of handheld flower bundles to convey messages.  Often called Posy, Nosegay, Tussie-Mussie or Talking Bouquet, these arrangements had meaning in multiple ways, from the flowers present, to how the bouquet was received, to how it was held in public, and even, how a woman smelled it.  It’s amazing to think of how many romances were sealed or rejected by a simple bouquet of flowers!

Flowers Today

Some of the traditions around the use of flowers continue to this day.  Flowers are a hallmark of weddings and the flowers in a wedding bouquet can have subtle meanings.  Many people continue to send flowers as a sign of love, friendship, and even sympathy; picking the right flower is still important!  Flowers are used in many art forms, from literature, to music, to paintings and are even part of our every day lexicon through popular idioms like “rose colored glasses”.

Flowers are now cross-bred for their colors, scents, and overall appearance; there are even rainbow roses, which depending on the color scheme, can represent very different feelings and sentiments.  So the next time you see an arrangement or flower bouquet, take a moment and reflect on what it means to you; there’s probably historical significance that can date back thousands of years!

More Information

If you would like more information on this topic or anything related to gardening, please visit the Rutgers Master Gardeners of Hunterdon County at https://hunterdon.njaes.rutgers.edu/master-gardeners/.  If you would like to reach out to Layce Gebhard, she can be reached at laycegebhard@gmail.com.  You can also download a copy of the handout, which includes a historical timeline and the meanings of some popular flowers at https://www.njstatelib.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Chronological-History-and-Origins-of-the-Language-of-Flowers-final-PAGE1.pdf.