Flowers and their Meanings
Flowers are beautiful! Walking through a flower garden can remind you how beautiful nature can be. Getting flowers can remind you how much someone loves you.
Around the 1800s the British and English visited Turkey. When they returned they brought back with them a new form of communication. This form of communication was telling a person how you felt by using flowers. There were a number of dictionaries that had pictures drawn of the flowers and what the flowers meant. Some flowers had different meanings by how their petals were arranged. Being given a different combination of flowers could mean something totally different then being given a single type of flower.
Using flowers for communication is still prevalent today. Flowers are sent for special occasions to say congratulations. They are sent to tell someone that you love them. They are sent to say get well soon and they are sent to tell someone thank you.
The communication using flowers can be simple or it can get complex. For example sending a single red rose holds the meaning of ‘I love you’. But sending a short stemmed rose holds the meaning of ‘you are a sweetheart or sweet girl’. A long stemmed rose holds the meaning of ‘I will love you always’. A rose without thorns holds the meaning of ‘love at first sight’. Mature blooms hold the meaning of ‘gratitude’ whereas a rosebud holds the meaning of ‘pure and lovely’.
Carnations have many meaning depending on their color. A red carnation signifies ‘admiration’. A pink carnation signifies ‘I will never forget you’. A purple carnation signifies ‘capriciousness’. A white carnation signifies ‘innocence’ or ‘sweet and lovely’. Not all flowers represent good qualities or happy tidings a striped or yellow carnation signifies ‘rejection or refusal’.
Some other flowers that are fairly well known have some interesting meanings too. The Daisy represents ‘innocence and loyal love’. The Dahlia represents ‘dignity, elegance, good taste and instability’. The Fern represents a ‘secret bond of love’. Baby’s breath represents the ‘pure of heart and innocence’. By giving a Begonia you mean to ‘beware’.
With the various dictionaries that were made of flowers of meanings there were a lot of different ideas about what one flower meant. At times a flower could mean two distinctly different thoughts. So sending flowers is a great way to tell someone something good or bad, but you may have to send a meaning book with the flowers or you may have them thinking the wrong thoughts.