Soft Spoken: The Lost Art of Floriography
*Article from Lexington Line Autumn/Winter 2024 Issue, pages 38-41
Check out the full issue here
In the thousands of flower shops sprinkled throughout New York City, overflowing buckets mix roses with daisies, daffodils with tulips, and carnations with baby’s breath. The harmony of color blends with the flowers’ perfumes, separated only by the cellophane that marks each bundle.
These days, flowers serve mostly as romantic gestures or decorative arrangements, but understanding the historical associations of a given bloom can add significance to your floral choices, and some contemporary designers are making a priority of reviving these added layers of meaning.
Historically, floriography—the language of flowers—was a subtle artful code representing thoughts that could not be spoken aloud.
“We see it being used as far back as ancient China, Assyria, and Egypt,” says Caitlin Merritt, an Instructor of Landscape Design History, Continuing Education at the New York Botanical Garden.
Part of Merritt’s job is to study the overlap between history and nature.
“When we think about Europe in the Middle Ages, literacy was a rarity but people still needed to communicate,” Merritt says. “We have records from Medieval France or Turkey. These ancient practices moved with the people and developed over centuries.”
Morgan Westerberg-Jackson, founder, lead designer, and floriographer of Blomstra Florals Co., agrees with Meritt.
“A floriography book often lists multiple meanings for a single flower, reflecting diverse interpretations across cultures,” Westerberg-Jackson says.
Merritt says the floriography known during the Victorian era is the culmination of each ancient civilization’s records. In the 19th century, floral symbolism was established as floriography and first emerged in Charlotte de la Tour’s 1819 book, Le Language des Fleurs.
“Since Victorians valued manners and stoicism, flowers could be used to show affection, a desire to court, or an end to a romance without open displays of emotion,” Jessica Roux says. Roux is a floriography expert and author of An Illustrated Guide to the Victorian Language of Flowers.
“Young women of high society embraced the practice, sending bouquets as tokens of love or warning, wearing flowers in their hair or tucked into their gowns, and celebrating all things floral,” Roux says.
During the Victorian era, each flower’s meaning was drawn from history, mythology, or the flowers’ details.
“Many were pulled from Greek mythology, like the myth of Narcissus and the daffodil, which was assigned the meaning of unrequited love,” Roux explains.
“Just as there are many flowers for romance, there are flowers for the gamut of emotions as well.”
Each flower holds a unique meaning, but the manner in which flowers are delivered was also important. Suitors at the beginning of courtships who sent a single bloom communicated simplicity and focused on the flower’s message, whereas bouquets expressed complex messages because of the variety of flowers and unique combinations they could create.
“Many young women of high society created small arrangements of flowers, called tussie-mussies, by combining a few blooms in a small bouquet,” Roux says. “They embraced the practice of sending bouquets as tokens of love or warning, wearing flowers in their hair or tucked into their gowns, and celebrating all things floral.”
Red roses remain popular because their meaning is widely recognized. Unfortunately, the deeper symbolic communication of flowers is less prevalent now, Westerberg-Jackson points out. They’re seen as a luxury item, and it’s not guaranteed that the recipients understand the messaging.
But at Blomstra Floral Co., Westerberg-Jackson blends floriography and wedding floral design to create unique experiences for each wedded pair, continuing floriography in the 21st century.
“As a designer, storytelling often comes second to fitting flowers into a client’s color palette,” she tells me.
Westerberg-Jackson listens to her clients and recognizes that there are only so many flowers to choose from when designing for a wedding, so there tends to be some overlap.
“Even though many flowers have multiple meanings, I arrange them to fit the unique story of each wedding, often using the same wildflowers in different combinations to convey distinct messages,” she says.
Westerberg-Jackson created a client questionnaire to understand who she would be creating for. She asked what three words they would use to describe themselves, and what their favorite flowers or botanical elements were.
And a few years after Westerberg-Jackson started her business, she noticed a trend in the responses.
“Remarkably, 75-80% of the time, their chosen flower reflected at least one of their self-descriptive words,” she says.
We’re all drawn to things that clarify who we are. Zodiac signs categorize us by season, and personality types give us a list of characteristics we’re defined by.
“One of the things I love is how humans simply seem drawn to flowers,” Merritt says. “We look at any civilization, and we can see flowers used in cooking, medicine, decorations, and rituals. It highlights how even the most everyday flowers contribute to our everyday lives.”
Floriography allows us to share our emotions with others. Still, it also shows who we are colorfully and uniquely, presenting confidence through orange lilies, creativity through marigolds, patience through Aster, and honesty through a white Chrysanthemum.
The practice of floriography isn’t lost to the Victorian era, with companies like Blomstra Florals resurrecting the tradition with modern applications.
“Today, as more and more people garden, we’re seeing more interest in floriography,” Roux says. “It’s a wonderful way to connect with the past and create gardens full of intention and beauty.”