Sometimes the meanings make sense, like poppies to represent ‘sleep’, referring to its soporific qualities. Therefore, walnuts represented intellect since they resembled brains. An old medicinal idea known as the ‘doctrine of signatures’ held true that a plant looked like the part of the body it could help. Others came from their medical properties, such as pennyroyal meaning “you must leave” which came from its use as an abortifacient (Stott 2016). Sweet violets meant modesty (Burke 1856: 61), after the myth in which the god Apollo pursued one of Diana’s nymph friends, so the goddess turned her into a violet to preserve her virtue. More meanings came from the legends and lore surrounding the flowers. Some of the meanings came from observations about the plants, such as the snowdrop representing hope since it is the first plant to break free of the snow. Mann Library, Cornell University (CC BY 2.0) Wirt, Baltimore, Md., 1855) in the special collections of A. However, Cortambert added an extra element, saying that “the significations of the different flowers are changed” to help keep the messages secret.īouquet image from “Flora’s Dictionary” (Mrs. She also continues the belief in Eastern practices of flowers used as love notes. In Le Langage des fleurs, Cortambert notes that “the language of flowers was known to the ancients”, and suggests the Greeks sent secret messages through flowers. Publishers began printing flower dictionaries, notably one by Louise Cortambert (writing as Madame Charlotte de La Tour) in 1819. The new flower dictionaries that appeared in 1810 were essentially appendices to these almanacs (2016). These combined images of seasonal flowers with facts or poems. Romie Stott explains that there was already a fashion in France in the early 1800s to use flower almanacs. They seized on the idea of sending messages using flowers, especially given its apparently ‘exotic’ origins. The publication of her embassy letters caught the public imagination. History is littered with examples of a story making a better option than the truth. Ultimately, she spoke over the people who practised it. Montagu either misunderstood what it was, or she romanticised it for her readers (Stott 2016). Or did they? Many have since noted that selam was a rhyming game, not a secret flower language. Rather than sending notes, which could be intercepted, they sent flowers as part of this language (Stott 2016). According to her, this was a way the harem ladies could pass secret messages to their lovers. She wrote letters home about the practice of selam. The wife of the British ambassador, Lady Montagu lived in Turkey in the early 1700s. While not its creator, a key figure in the development of floriography was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. ‘Victorian Arrangement’ by George Henry Hall.
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