Lanuage of flowers

If anyone has seen our flyer for the upcoming events at the Hunter House, then you will know that we have decided to focus on flowers throughout the summer. Nowadays, we send flowers for birthdays, Valentine’s Day, or perhaps to smooth things over after a fight. The Victorians, on the other hand, used flowers to convey so many emotions that they created a language for flowers assigning a meaning to every flower. Simply by giving someone a well thought out bouquet you could tell someone you loved them, you sympathized with them, you hated them, you just wanted to be friend, you thought they were lying, and so on; even something as simple as telling someone you agreed with them.
Prior to the Victorian Era, flowers still had meanings. They were used as symbols of a religion or deity, usually Christian, Greek, or Roman. There is also a story behind the origin and meaning of each flower. Being a person who enjoys all kinds of stories and tales, I could pick a few flowers and let you know the stories behind each. However, in the interest of space and the fact that I’m supposed to be focusing on the Victorian meaning of flowers, I’ll just have to let that go. Since we will shortly be coming up on June, which is also referred to as “wedding month”, I thought I’d focus on the meaning of the flowers inside an average Victorian wedding bouquet.
A typical wedding bouquet usually consisted of one large rose in the middle, surrounded by other flowers. There could be other roses in the bouquet as well, but there was usually a larger on in the middle of the bouquet. A rose symbolizes love. The color of the rose indicates the type of love a person would wish to convey. Red roses are for romantic love. The story behind how roses turned red is Greek in origin. It’s a great story regarding Aphrodite (goddess of love) and Persephone (goddess of the underworld) competing for the love of Adonis (a mortal). In a nutshell, the story says that Aphrodite blocked Adonis from going to the underworld to see Persephone. So Persephone had Adonis fatally wounded so that he would be forever locked in the underworld with her. Aphrodite rushed to his aid while Adonis was dying and scratched herself on a white rose bush, turning them red. White roses symbolize purity in love or spiritual love (white roses were associated with the Virgin Mary). Yellow roses symbolize a decrease in love and often refer to infidelity. Yellow roses were not used in Victorian wedding bouquets.
Next to the large rose, the most common flowers in a bouquet were baby’s breath, pansies, ivy, dahlias (not black), peonies, and primroses. Baby’s breath is a symbol of festivity and happiness. Pansies are meant to convey happy thoughts. Ivy is for fidelity. Dahlias are used to express commitment. Peonies mean that one has hope for a happy marriage. Primroses are said to also be a sign of love and also youthfulness.
The primrose was one of the most fashionable flowers in the Victorian Era. Queen Victoria had them grown in her private gardens. She would often send bouquets of primroses to Prime Minister Disraeli. Upon Disraeli’s death, she sent a wreath of primroses as a token of affection. The other most popular flower in Victorian times was the violet. The meaning of violets is modesty, but the Victorians liked the scent so much that violets were the most common flower to find at the street markets.
After reading all about flowers here, we hope you will come see the decorations we have planned in the museum during our flower related events. If you’re like me and love the stories behind the meanings of flowers, you might enjoy this book: The Language of Flowers by Sheila Pickles.