Lavender
The flower dictionaries made lavender a flower of distrust, from an old belief that asps lived under it. Sarah Josepha Hale, in Boston, gave it the opposite: "acknowledgement".
Meaning
Charlotte de La Tour pairs lavender with Méfiance, distrust. People once believed, she writes, that the asp, a dangerous viper, lived under lavender, so the plant was approached with caution. The English version of her book translates it as "mistrust" with the same explanation. Henrietta Dumont's Floral Offering (Philadelphia, 1851) uses "distrust" in her chapter and "mistrust" in her dictionary, and Kate Greenaway's Language of Flowers (1884) gives "distrust". Sarah Josepha Hale's Flora's Interpreter (Boston, 1832) breaks with them: her lavender means "acknowledgement", and the verse she sets with it reads "She sent him Lavender, owning her love." The dictionaries are a finished fashion, not a living tradition.
Origin and history
Richard Folkard's Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics (1884) gives the name's origin, which La Tour also mentions: the ancients used lavender in their baths, and the name comes from the Latin lavare, to wash. The English saying "laid up in lavender" comes from the old custom of scenting newly washed linen with it. Folkard also notes that Shakespeare's Perdita counts lavender among the flowers of middle age.
Distrust in Paris, acknowledgement in Boston
Lavender shows how far apart the French and American books could be. La Tour's distrust comes from a belief about snakes; Hale's acknowledgement comes from a line of verse about a woman owning her love. Greenaway, in London in 1884, went back to La Tour.
See also
Red rose, White rose, Yellow rose, Pink rose, Lily, Tulip.
Sources
- 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, “Méfiance”
- The Language of Flowers: The Floral Offering, by Henrietta Dumont, 1851, H. C. Peck & Theo. Bliss, Philadelphia (Project Gutenberg edition), Lavender chapter; Dictionary of Flowers
- 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, Lavender
- Language of Flowers, illustrated by Kate Greenaway, 1884, George Routledge and Sons (Project Gutenberg edition), Lavender
- Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics (Richard Folkard, 1884), Richard Folkard, Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics (London: Sampson Low, 1884), Project Gutenberg, Lavender
- The Language of Flowers, with Illustrative Poetry, by Frederic Shoberl, seventh edition, 1840, Saunders & Otley, London (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library copy), Dictionary, “Mistrust”
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Last reviewed September 29, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research