What Are Your Flowers Really Saying?

There is perhaps no better day than Valentine’s Day to demonstrate that love and romance are not the same thing. Love, enduring love, is built on mutual understanding and the rarity of seeing your true self reflected back to you in the eyes of another with kindness and clarity. Romance, on the other hand, is a set of societal ideals meant to physically and visually express that love, often with commercial interest at its heart, that are as changeable as hemlines and the seasons. 

What one might consider comforting, old-fashioned romance is entirely dependent on how old you are. Inescapably, in a decade not too far off, two residents of a retirement center will certainly be reminiscing over the simple days of “promposals” and inscrutable emoji pairings. What’s golden is often what’s gone, but before you judge the young too harshly for their courtship rituals, or seeming lack thereof, imagine how horrified the gilded 1880’s characters of Edith Wharton’s “The Age of Innocence,” touching only through gloves, would be to watch the seemingly pure but undeniably sexual dreamscape pas de deux between Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds in the 1952 musical “Singin’ in the Rain.”

Romance through the ages

In the search for romance, my own millenial generation is inextricably bound to our phones. The result is a courtship based mainly in written communication and all the trappings that come with it — the waiting, the worrying, the interpreting and, of course, the likely possibility of miscommunication. There is no more emblematic scene of today’s dating world than someone gathering friends together around one glowing phone screen, keeping it sheltered like a small fire, as the group attempts a near-academic close-read examination of the emotional intent behind a guy’s text. We know what it says, but what did he mean?As modern as this may sound, no one understood the art of sending subtext better than the 19th-century English.

The lives of young women from the era of Jane Austen’s novels were restricted and strictly supervised. The sexes existed in separate spheres, and it would take a gentleman’s thorough understanding of subtle acceptable customs, along with a dash of creativity, to win love with limited, scrutinized communication through letters, music, family visits and flowers. 

The gift of flowers, one of our most enduring courtship rituals, once demanded far more thought than simply purchasing what might look appealing. A bouquet, it turns out, could say a mouthful. 

The flowering book of love

Floriology, the study of the secret meaning of flowers, swept through 19th-century England for good reason: It was a visually beautiful way to express in code what might otherwise be too daring to even pen in a letter. “The Language of Flowers,” by author and illustrator Kate Greenway, was the ultimate manual. First published in the 1880s, sections are reprinted here under public domain and were available for this article thanks to a free digitized reproduction of the original book from The New York Public Library. 

Greenway wrote, “The innocent and pure sensations which induce that mutual regard between the opposite sexes in their youthfulness are indeed well expressed by flowers.” In fact, the book suggests, the mysteriousness and interpretive nature of flowers conjures up far more romance than simply saying what you mean. “In such a contest for victory, a half-avowal of reciprocal affection is more charming than any absolute acknowledgment; and the yielding up of a flower or bouquet has made far happier than the far-fetched expressions of a most tender note. The art of love-making is, with women, the art of self-defense; the more scrupulous and delicate they are, the worthy are they of the homage rendered to them.”

What’s in a bloom?

“The Language of Flowers” was just one of several dictionary-like tomes that dissected just what a gentleman caller was attempting to say. The rose, of course, is the ideal flower, but not necessarily the red roses seen draped next to boxed chocolate in every contemporary image of Valentine’s Day consumerism. The red and white rose paired together carried with it the national history of the civil struggle in the War of the Roses between the Houses of York (white) and Lancaster (red). Better perhaps then to send a blushing pink rose in full bloom, “The image of youth, innocence, and harmless pleasure.”  

With the book on hand there was no limit to how a man might flatter the object of his affection. Daisies meant “I share your sentiments” while the yellow tickseed flower indicated “love at first sight.” Coriander meant she had “hidden worth,” the lily indicated he saw her as “majestic,” lilac was symbolic of “the first feelings of love”, and (what I would most like to receive) the gift of a pineapple meant plainly, “you are perfect.”

For every admission of affection there were of course, plenty of ways to express your displeasure, and one can’t help but wonder, why have we not held onto the cutting tradition of the break-up bouquet? Lavender for “distrust,” yellow carnations for “disdain,” hydrangeas for “heartlessness,” marigolds for “sorrow,” peonies for letting her know she should be “ashamed.” 

If you simply want to send melancholic regrets, perhaps meadow saffron, which admitted, sadly, honorably, “My best days are past.” 

Perhaps if we are to take anything from floriology, it is to never overlook the simple pansy, which derives its name from the French Pensez-a-moi — think of me. Greenway writes the pansy is a “confident assurance that those whom we love are not unmindful of us, when present or absent.”