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Plate 1 A five-petalled violet beside a primrose with notched petals

February birth flowers: violet and primrose

February’s birth flowers are the violet and the primrose. The Victorian flower dictionaries read the violet as modesty or faithfulness, depending on its kind, and the primrose as early youth or childhood, though the books disagree.

Birth flowers. Also called birth flower for February, February birth flower.

Meaning

The Old Farmer’s Almanac gives the violet first and the primrose second. University of Illinois Extension gives the violet and the iris; West Virginia University Extension and Penn State Extension’s Master Gardeners give the violet alone. The sweet violet, Viola odorata, is native to Europe and western Asia, and its Latin species name means scented (NC State Extension). The primrose, Primula vulgaris, has pale yellow to cream flowers and, NC State Extension notes, blooms in April. Penn State Extension’s Master Gardeners say the meanings rest “on folklore and tradition passed on through generations” and vary with the source and the time.

Origin and history

Penn State’s Master Gardeners point out that February’s flower is the violet, not the rose of Valentine’s Day. The nineteenth-century books put both flowers a little later in the year. In the Calendar of Flowers that Henrietta Dumont printed in 1851, which gives each saint’s day a flower in bloom near the feast, the common primrose falls on 5 February, St Agatha’s day, but the sweet violet not until 17 March, St Gertrude’s. Dumont’s own account of the flowering year gives February the snowdrop and March the violet.

Modesty or faithfulness: the violet in the flower books

Frederic Shoberl’s Language of Flowers (1840) and Dumont’s dictionary give the violet modesty, and Dumont’s longer entry calls it “modest worth”. Kate Greenaway (1884) divides it by kind: the sweet violet is modesty, the blue violet faithfulness, the dame violet watchfulness and the yellow violet rural happiness. Sarah Josepha Hale’s Flora’s Interpreter also gives the blue violet faithfulness. Katharine Beals (1917) heads her chapter “constancy, modesty”.

Stories of the violet

Shoberl says some etymologists trace the Greek name, ion, to Ia, the daughter of Midas, whom Diana changed into a violet to hide her from Apollo. Beals gives two other stories: that the purple violet sprang up where the lyre of Orpheus fell, and that violets covered the ground where Jupiter hid Io, the daughter of Inachus, in the form of a heifer.

Youth, childhood or grief: the primrose

Greenaway gives the primrose early youth; Shoberl and Dumont’s dictionary give childhood, and Dumont’s longer entry “early grief”. Hale gives “have confidence in me”, and University of Illinois Extension’s modern list “I can’t live without you”. Shoberl tells the story behind the old name: the primrose was once called Paralisos, after a youth who died of grief for his betrothed Melicerta and was changed into the flower by his parents. Linnaeus, he adds, named it Primula veris, the firstling of spring.

Where you’ll see it today

whatdoesthissymbolmean.comFebruary birthstone: amethystThe same month's birthstone

See also

Violet, January birth flowers: carnation and snowdrop, March birth flowers: daffodil and jonquil, April birth flowers: daisy and sweet pea, May birth flowers: lily of the valley and hawthorn, June birth flowers: rose and honeysuckle.

Sources

  1. Monthly Birth Flowers, Master Gardeners of Luzerne County, Penn State Extension
  2. Birth Flowers by Month: Discover Your Monthly Flower & Meaning, Catherine Boeckmann, updated 17 September 2026, The Old Farmer’s Almanac
  3. Floriography: The meaning of flowers, Bruce J. Black and Rhonda Ferree, updated November 2022, University of Illinois Extension
  4. WL 173 Floriography: The Language of Flowers, Natasha Harris and Jesica Streets, 2022, West Virginia University Extension
  5. February: Violet, Joan Banyas, Master Gardeners of Luzerne County, Penn State Extension
  6. Language of Flowers, illustrated by Kate Greenaway, 1884, George Routledge and Sons (Project Gutenberg edition)
  7. The Language of Flowers: The Floral Offering, by Henrietta Dumont, 1851, H. C. Peck & Theo. Bliss, Philadelphia (Project Gutenberg edition)
  8. The Language of Flowers, with Illustrative Poetry, by Frederic Shoberl, seventh edition, 1840, Saunders & Otley, London (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library copy)
  9. Flora’s Interpreter, and Fortuna Flora, by Sarah Josepha Hale, 1856 edition, Sanborn, Carter and Bazin, Boston (Internet Archive)
  10. Flower Lore and Legend, by Katharine M. Beals, 1917, Henry Holt and Company, New York (Internet Archive)
  11. Viola odorata (Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox), NC State Extension
  12. Primula vulgaris (Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox), NC State Extension

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Last reviewed September 29, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research

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