January birth flowers: carnation and snowdrop
January has two birth flowers on the usual American list, the carnation and the snowdrop. In the nineteenth-century flower dictionaries the snowdrop meant hope; what the carnation meant depended on its colour and on the book.
Meaning
The Old Farmer’s Almanac gives the carnation as January’s primary birth flower and the snowdrop as its secondary one. University of Illinois Extension and West Virginia University Extension give the carnation alone; Penn State Extension’s Master Gardeners give the snowdrop. The carnation is Dianthus caryophyllus, grown in many colours, with a tall kind raised for the florist trade (NC State Extension). The snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, is a small bulb of Europe and south-west Asia, named for flowering in late winter, when snow can still be on the ground. 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
Where the idea of a flower for each month began is not known. The Farmers’ Almanac says the exact origins are unclear, and repeats a belief that the practice began in ancient Rome without saying who holds it. The old books show months and days being given flowers well before the modern lists. Henrietta Dumont’s Language of Flowers (Philadelphia, 1851) prints a Calendar of Flowers in which Roman Catholic monks gave each saint’s day a flower that bloomed near the feast; in it the snowdrop falls on 2 February, the Purification of the Virgin Mary. The Garland of the Year, a gift book from Marcus Ward of London and Belfast, has twelve colour plates of flowers, one for each month, offered as a birthday present, and gives January the snowdrop. F. Klickmann’s “Language of Flowers” Birthday Book gives a flower and its meaning for each day, and opens January with the snowdrop, hope. The carnation has no January place in any of them.
What the flower dictionaries said the carnation meant
The books disagree. Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers (1884) gives the carnation by colour: the deep red carnation is “Alas! for my poor heart”, the striped carnation refusal, and the yellow carnation disdain. Sarah Josepha Hale’s Flora’s Interpreter (1856 edition) gives the carnation “pride and beauty”, the meaning West Virginia University Extension still prints for January. Dumont reads the carnation under the pink, which she gives pure love; she explains that florists divided these flowers into pinks and carnations, and that old English writers called the carnation the clove-gillyflower, for its scent of cloves. University of Illinois Extension’s modern list goes further by colour: pink for “I’ll never forget you”, white for “sweet and lovely”, striped for “No, I cannot be with you”.
The snowdrop: hope, or friendship in adversity
Greenaway, Frederic Shoberl’s Language of Flowers (1840) and Dumont all give the snowdrop hope; Shoberl calls it the herald of spring. Hale gives it “friendship in adversity”. Katharine Beals, in Flower Lore and Legend (1917), gives friendship in adversity, consolation and hope, and retells a legend in which an angel, sent to console Eve after the fall, breathed on a snowflake and turned it into the first snowdrop, as a promise of the summer to come.
The snowdrop and Candlemas
Beals also records a church custom. On 2 February, Candlemas, the feast of the Purification of the Virgin, snowdrops were strewn where the Virgin’s statue had stood, and an old saying had the snowdrop “First rears her head on Candlemas day.” The saints’ calendar in Dumont’s book puts the snowdrop on the same day.
Where you’ll see it today
whatdoesthissymbolmean.comJanuary birthstone: garnetThe same month's birthstoneSee also
Carnation, February birth flowers: violet and primrose, 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
- Birth Flowers by Month: Discover Your Monthly Flower & Meaning, Catherine Boeckmann, updated 17 September 2026, The Old Farmer’s Almanac
- Birth Flower Chart: All 12 Birth Flowers by Month, Shivani Vyas, updated 19 August 2026, Farmers’ Almanac
- Floriography: The meaning of flowers, Bruce J. Black and Rhonda Ferree, updated November 2022, University of Illinois Extension
- WL 173 Floriography: The Language of Flowers, Natasha Harris and Jesica Streets, 2022, West Virginia University Extension
- Monthly Birth Flowers, Master Gardeners of Luzerne County, Penn State Extension
- January: Snowdrop, Joan Banyas, Master Gardeners of Luzerne County, Penn State Extension
- Language of Flowers, illustrated by Kate Greenaway, 1884, George Routledge and Sons (Project Gutenberg edition)
- Flora’s Interpreter, and Fortuna Flora, by Sarah Josepha Hale, 1856 edition, Sanborn, Carter and Bazin, Boston (Internet Archive)
- The Language of Flowers: The Floral Offering, by Henrietta Dumont, 1851, H. C. Peck & Theo. Bliss, Philadelphia (Project Gutenberg edition)
- The Language of Flowers, with Illustrative Poetry, by Frederic Shoberl, seventh edition, 1840, Saunders & Otley, London (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library copy)
- Flower Lore and Legend, by Katharine M. Beals, 1917, Henry Holt and Company, New York (Internet Archive)
- The Garland of the Year; or, The Months: Their Poetry and Flowers, 1873 (catalogue date), Marcus Ward & Co., London and Belfast (Internet Archive)
- The “Language of Flowers” Birthday Book, compiled by F. Klickmann, Bosworth & Co., London (Internet Archive)
- Dianthus caryophyllus (Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox), NC State Extension
- Galanthus nivalis (Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox), NC State Extension
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Last reviewed September 29, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research