Pink rose
The flower dictionaries sorted roses by kind rather than by colour, so their pink roses are particular varieties. Sarah Josepha Hale made the pink damask rose "bashful love"; the hundred-leaved rose meant "grace" to Charlotte de La Tour, "dignity of mind" to Hale and "pride" to Kate Greenaway.
Meaning
Hale's Flora's Interpreter (Boston, 1832) is the book that names colours. Her damask rose, "a beautiful pink, verging towards purple", says "bashful love". Her hundred-leaved rose, whose colours run "from crimson, to pink and purple", says "dignity of mind". Her China rose, white in China "but here they are pink", says "grace". La Tour's French dictionary gives the hundred-leaved rose Grâces, the Graces: when the three Graces followed the Muses, she writes, they wore crowns of hundred-leaved roses. The English version of her book and Henrietta Dumont's Floral Offering (Philadelphia, 1851) keep "grace". Kate Greenaway's Language of Flowers (1884) gives the hundred-leaved rose "pride" and the damask rose "brilliant complexion". Her maiden blush rose says "if you love me, you will find it out". The flower Greenaway calls the carnation pink, a different plant, means "woman's love" (see Carnation). The dictionaries are a finished fashion rather than a living tradition; the rose's place in the calendar today is as the Old Farmer's Almanac's first flower for June.
Origin and history
Hale knew the books disagreed. Her introduction says she took her meanings from European writers, "for these authorities, like other philologists, sometimes differ", and that for the verses carrying each sentiment she chose American poets only. Brent Elliott, of the Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Library, spent years answering callers who wanted to know what a flower "really" meant; he concluded there was no single consistent set of meanings, and that "plants don't have real meanings; it's human beings who assign meanings to them".
The bridal rose
Hale and Greenaway both have a bridal rose meaning "happy love". Hale's bridal rose is not a rose at all: she places it in the genus Rubus, the brambles, with small white double flowers. For the colours the dictionaries did name, see Red rose, White rose and Yellow rose.
See also
Red rose, Carnation, Red rose, White rose, Yellow rose, Lily.
Sources
- 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, Introduction; Rose, Damask; Rose, Hundred leaved; Rose, China; Rose, Bridal
- 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, “Grâces”, “Gentillesse”
- The Language of Flowers: The Floral Offering, by Henrietta Dumont, 1851, H. C. Peck & Theo. Bliss, Philadelphia (Project Gutenberg edition), Dictionary of Flowers
- Language of Flowers, illustrated by Kate Greenaway, 1884, George Routledge and Sons (Project Gutenberg edition), Rose, Damask; Rose, Hundred-leaved; Rose, Maiden Blush; Rose, Bridal
- 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. 3, 36
- Birth Flowers by Month: Discover Your Monthly Flower & Meaning, Catherine Boeckmann, updated 17 September 2026, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, June
- The Language of Flowers, with Illustrative Poetry, by Frederic Shoberl, seventh edition, 1840, Saunders & Otley, London (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library copy), Dictionary, “Grace”
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves.
Last reviewed September 29, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research