Lily
In the flower dictionaries the lily meant majesty: Charlotte de La Tour called it "the king of flowers, whose queen is the rose". American and later English books made the white lily mean purity instead, the meaning Christian painting had given it since the Middle Ages.
Meaning
La Tour's chapter on the common white lily is headed Majesté. The English version of her book keeps "Majesty" and opens with verse on "the Lily's height", "a fair, imperial flower"; Henrietta Dumont's Floral Offering (Philadelphia, 1851) does the same. Sarah Josepha Hale's Flora's Interpreter (Boston, 1832) gives the white lily, "a native of Palestine", as "purity and beauty", and Kate Greenaway's Language of Flowers (1884) gives "purity, sweetness". Greenaway keeps majesty for the imperial lily, and adds coquetry for the day lily and falsehood for the yellow lily. Dumont also tells the story of the white lily's origin: Jupiter set the infant Hercules at the sleeping Juno's breast so that her milk would make him immortal, and the drops that fell to earth became white lilies. For Christians the white lily is a living sign: Richard Folkard wrote in 1884 that in nearly every Catholic country it is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and decorates her shrine.
Origin and history
Elizabeth Haig's study of flowers in religious painting (1913) traces the Christian lily. The earliest Christian artists used lilies to show the delights of Paradise. By the tenth century the Church had taken over the older, pre-Christian use of the lily as a sign of purity, and after the twelfth century it always stands for purity and appears most often with the Virgin Mary and with monastic saints. The lily of sacred art is Lilium candidum, the Madonna lily. Folkard adds that the white lily decorates the Virgin's shrine especially on the feasts of the Annunciation and the Visitation. The English version of La Tour gives the lily's biblical credentials: the Jews copied its form in the decoration of the Temple, and Christ called it more splendid than Solomon.
Lilies that are not lilies
Several flowers in the dictionaries are called lilies without being lilies. The lily of the valley meant "return of happiness" to Greenaway and to the English version of La Tour; it is one of the two flowers the Old Farmer's Almanac gives for May. Haig calls the Iris the only rival to the white lily as the Virgin's flower, though it is not a lily. The lotus, which Folkard identifies with Herodotus's "water lily" of Egypt, was for the Greeks a symbol of beauty and eloquence, and Greenaway lists it as "eloquence"; the lotus of Buddhist and Hindu art has its own pages, Lotus and Padma.
The king and the queen
La Tour's line, "the king of flowers, whose queen is the rose", sets the lily beside the rose. The books kept the pairing in their meanings: majesty for the lily, beauty or love for the rose.
See also
Red rose, Lotus, Iris, Red rose, White rose, Yellow rose.
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, Lis commun
- The Language of Flowers: The Floral Offering, by Henrietta Dumont, 1851, H. C. Peck & Theo. Bliss, Philadelphia (Project Gutenberg edition), Lily chapter
- 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, Lily, white
- Language of Flowers, illustrated by Kate Greenaway, 1884, George Routledge and Sons (Project Gutenberg edition), Lily; Lily of the Valley; Lotus
- The Floral Symbolism of the Great Masters (Elizabeth Haig, 1913), Elizabeth Haig, The Floral Symbolism of the Great Masters (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1913), Project Gutenberg, The Lily; The Iris
- Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics (Richard Folkard, 1884), Richard Folkard, Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics (London: Sampson Low, 1884), Project Gutenberg, Lily; Lotus
- Birth Flowers by Month: Discover Your Monthly Flower & Meaning, Catherine Boeckmann, updated 17 September 2026, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, May
- The Language of Flowers, with Illustrative Poetry, by Frederic Shoberl, seventh edition, 1840, Saunders & Otley, London (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library copy), Lily; Dictionary, “Majesty”; Lily of the Valley
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