Old SymbolsWhere every symbol began

Flower symbolism

The flowers given to each month, and what the old flower dictionaries said each flower meant.

Two collections of flower meanings are gathered here, and they are easy to confuse. Birth flowers are lists that give each month a flower or two: the Old Farmer’s Almanac gives January the carnation and the snowdrop. The language of flowers is the nineteenth-century fashion for giving each flower a sentiment, so that a bouquet could be read as a message. Cornell University Library’s exhibition Written in Petals reads one bouquet as “I share your sentiments (garden daisy) about the first emotions of love (lilac).”

How birth flowers and the flower dictionaries meet

The flower dictionaries were not arranged by month of birth. Henrietta Dumont’s book of 1851 prints a Catholic calendar that gives a flower to each saint’s day, chosen “on account of its blooming about the time of that saint’s festival”, with holly for Christmas Day. The Farmers’ Almanac says the exact origins of birth flowers are unclear. Each month page, such as January, borrows its meanings from the old dictionaries, book by book.

Did the language of flowers come from Turkey?

Probably not, though the books said it did. Their English version of 1840 names Lady Mary Wortley Montagu among the first who “gave celebrity in Europe to the language of flowers”. Her letter from Pera of 16 March 1718 describes a Turkish love letter made of a pearl, a clove, soap, coal, pepper and a rose, each standing for a verse that rhymed with its name. Brent Elliott, in a 2013 history for the RHS Lindley Library, points out that this was not “of flowers”, since it used objects of every kind, and not a language, since the objects only called rhyming verses to mind. The orientalist Hammer-Purgstall had denounced her exaggerations in 1809. Cornell’s exhibition finds a European origin more likely, probably in romantic bouquets in France.

Why one flower has several meanings

The yellow rose meant infidelity to Charlotte de La Tour in Paris because, she wrote, yellow is the colour of the unfaithful; jealousy in Dumont’s chapter on it; “let us forget” to Sarah Josepha Hale in Boston in 1832; and decrease of love to Kate Greenaway in 1884. Elliott’s verdict is that “there was no single consistent set of meanings of flowers.”

Greenaway gives the lotus only “eloquence”. The lotus of Buddhist and Hindu tradition has its own pages, beginning with the lotus among Buddhist symbols.

Sources

  1. Birth Flowers by Month: Discover Your Monthly Flower & Meaning, Catherine Boeckmann, updated 17 September 2026, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, January
  2. Le Langage des Fleurs, Charlotte de La Tour (Written in Petals), Written in Petals: The Language of Flowers in Victorian Europe, online exhibition, Cornell University Library
  3. The Language of Flowers: The Floral Offering, by Henrietta Dumont, 1851, H. C. Peck & Theo. Bliss, Philadelphia (Project Gutenberg edition), Calendar of Flowers; Yellow Rose chapter
  4. Birth Flower Chart: All 12 Birth Flowers by Month, Shivani Vyas, updated 19 August 2026, Farmers’ Almanac
  5. The Language of Flowers, with Illustrative Poetry, by Frederic Shoberl, seventh edition, 1840, Saunders & Otley, London (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library copy), title page; Introduction
  6. Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1790 edition), Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M——y W——y M——e, written during her travels in Europe, Asia and Africa, new edition (London: Thomas Martin, 1790); first published 1763, Project Gutenberg, Letter XL, Pera, 16 March
  7. The Victorian Language of Flowers (Brent Elliott, 2013), Brent Elliott, "The Victorian language of flowers", Occasional Papers from the RHS Lindley Library 10: 3–94 (2013), Royal Horticultural Society, via the Internet Archive, pp. 4–5, 8, 10–12
  8. Le Langage des fleurs (Charlotte de La Tour, 13th edition), Charlotte de La Tour, Le Langage des fleurs, treizième édition augmentée (Paris: Garnier frères, [1856]); first published 1819, Cornell University Library, via the Internet Archive, Dictionnaire, “Infidélité”
  9. Flora's Interpreter (Sarah Josepha Hale, 1832), Sarah Josepha Hale, Flora's Interpreter, or the American Book of Flowers and Sentiments (Boston: Marsh, Capen and Lyon, 1832), Boston Public Library, via the Internet Archive, Rose, yellow
  10. Language of Flowers, illustrated by Kate Greenaway, 1884, George Routledge and Sons (Project Gutenberg edition), Rose, Yellow; Lotus

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