Topic summary
Language of flowers
Floriography (language of flowers) is a means of cryptological communication through the use or arrangement of flowers. Meaning has been attributed to flowers for thousands of years, and some form of floriography has been practiced in traditional cultures throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa.
According to Jayne Alcock, grounds and gardens supervisor at the , the renewed Victorian era interest in the language of flowers finds its roots in Ottoman Turkey, specifically the court in Constantinople and an obsession it held with tulips during the first half of the 18th century. In the 14th century, the Turkish tradition sélam had an influence on the language of flowers. Sélam, better known throughout Europe as Turkish love letters , consisted of using a mixture of different objects such as flowers, locks of hair, and pearls which could be wrapped in a handkerchief to create a poetic hidden message. The receiver would then decipher the message by finding the meaning of the words which had to rhyme with the name of the object; this would be repeated with every object until a verse could be completed
During the Victorian age, the use of flowers as a means of covert communication coincided with a growing interest in botany. The floriography craze was introduced to Europe by the English poet Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762), who brought it to England in 1718 from her travels to Constantinople. Aubry de La Mottraye (1674–1743), who introduced it to the Swedish court in 1727. Joseph Hammer-Purgstall's Dictionnaire du language des fleurs (1809) appears to be the first published list associating flowers with symbolic definitions, while the first dictionary of floriography appears in 1819 when Louise Cortambert, writing under pen name Madame Charlotte de la Tour, wrote Le langage des Fleurs.
Robert Tyas was a popular British flower writer, publisher, and clergyman, who lived from 1811 to 1879; his book, The Sentiment of Flowers; or, Language of Flora, first published in 1836 and reprinted by various publishing houses at least through 1880, was billed as an English version of Charlotte de la Tour's book.
Interest in floriography soared in Victorian England, North America, and France during the 19th century. Gifts of blooms, plants, and specific floral arrangements were used to send a coded message to the recipient, allowing the sender to express feelings of romance and courtship which could not be spoken aloud in Victorian society. Armed with floral dictionaries, Victorians often exchanged small "talking bouquets" or "word poesy,” called nosegays or tussie-mussies, which could be worn or carried as a fashion accessory. The word "nosegay" was used because the flowers would smell nice and the word "gay" meant ornament. These accessories were originally worn to mask the scent of the streets and body odor, and were often composed of fragrant herbs and flowers such as lavender, lemon balm, and roses.
During the 16th century, the purpose of the tussie-mussies changed. They were commonly gifted to a love interest. The meaning of flowers was determined by their cultural meanings along with legends and myths. In England and America, courses such as botany, painting flowers, and floral arranging became popular in education, especially for young women. Tussie-mussies are still used as corsages and boutonnieres.
In the United States, the first appearance of the language of flowers in print was in the writings of Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, a French-American naturalist, who wrote ongoing features under the title "The School of Flora", from 1827 through 1828, in the weekly Saturday Evening Post and monthly Casket; or Flowers of Literature, Wit, and Sentiment. These pieces contained the botanic, English, and French names of the plant, a description of the plant, an explanation of its Latin names, and the flower's emblematic meaning; therefore readers could select flowers appropriately to send a message. However, the first books on floriography were Elizabeth Wirt's Flora's Dictionary and Dorothea Dix's The Garland of Flora, both of which were published in 1829, though Wirt's book had been issued in an unauthorized edition in 1828.
During its peak in the United States, the language of flowers attracted the attention of popular writers and editors. Sarah Josepha Hale, longtime editor of the Ladies' Magazine and co-editor of Godey's Lady's Book, edited Flora's Interpreter in 1832; it continued in print through the 1860s. Catharine H. Waterman Esling wrote a long poem titled "The Language of Flowers", which first appeared in 1839 in her own language of flowers book, Flora's Lexicon; it continued in print through the 1860s. Lucy Hooper, an editor, novelist, poet, and playwright, included several of her flower poems in The Lady's Book of Flowers and Poetry, first published in 1841. Frances Sargent Osgood, a poet and friend of Edgar Allan Poe, first published The Poetry of Flowers and Flowers of Poetry in 1841, and it continued in print through the 1860s.