glossahortensia

[glossahortensia]

Italian Aster (Michaelmas daisy)

Aster amellus L. (1753)

Although 'Michaelmas daisy' is associated with sentiments such as afterthought and welcome to a stranger, the Aster amellus - known as the Michaelmas daisy in Europe, where it grows - is not listed as the subject species by any English-language floriography book that I've seen so far.

Instead, Henry Phillips gives this honour to the American Michaelmas daisy, Symphyotrichum tradescantii. That said, the two are pretty similar, and most books simply say 'Michaelmas daisy', so make your own conclusions.

They're a lot more purple in person (especially in domestication) than this specimen, and this is remarked upon even by Virgil, writing about them in his Georgics. You can read the Latin and see my sources on my site linked below, but while I believe the average Tumblr user is more fluent in Ancient Latin than the layperson, I nonetheless provide here the English version from a 1900 translation by James Bradstreet Greenough, who I believe captures the poetic spirit of Georgics.

There is a meadow-flower by country folk Hight star-wort [amellus]; 'tis a plant not far to seek; For from one sod an ample growth it rears, Itself all golden, but girt with plenteous leaves, Where glory of purple shines through violet gloom. With chaplets woven hereof full oft are decked Heaven's altars: harsh its taste upon the tongue; Shepherds in vales smooth-shorn of nibbling flocks By Mella's winding waters gather it. The roots of this, well seethed in fragrant wine, Set in brimmed baskets at their doors for food. (Verg. G. 4.271-280)

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Image source: Floral Illustrations of the Seasons, Margaret Lace Roscoe, London: Robert Havell (1831) via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

[glossahortensia]

Boneset

Delay

Genus Eupatorium L. (1753)

19th C English: eupatorium; fever root.

19th C French: eupatoire f.

19th C German: Wasserdost m. ('water-tuft').

The sentiment of delay may simply be because it flowers late in summer. More info to come as I encounter it.

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Image source: Plant-life, Charles A. Hall, London: A. & C. Black (1915) via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

[glossahortensia]

Rosebay Willowherb (Fireweed)

Celibacy, Pretension

Epilobium angustifolium L. (1753)

The sentiment of celibacy arises from the rosebay willowherb's association with St Anthony, as in the French names such as 'herbe de Saint-Antoine' ('herb St Anthony').

St Anthony the Great (251-356, Coptic: Ⲁⲃⲃⲁ Ⲁⲛⲧⲱⲛⲓ) was a Coptic Christian who abandoned a life of wealth in Koma, Lower Egypt, to live as a hermit. According to tradition, although Anthony was plagued by temptations, he lived a strict ascetic life including celibacy, and a following of other ascetics grew around the abandoned Roman fort he had occupied in Pispir (now Der-el-Memun) in admiration of his devotion. Eventually, Anthony emerged from his solitude and instructed the disciples who had waited for him before again withdrawing to a home on Mount Colzim, where a monastery which bears his name, Der Mar Antonios, still stands.

As the first man to organise ascetic, withdrawn disciples in Christianity, he is also known as the 'Father of Monasticism', although Anthony himself did not establish a monastery. He is credited with miraculous healings, particularly from ergotism and skin diseases, variously under the label 'St Anthony's fire'.

Phillips calls rosebay willowherb 'his favourite flower', but the plant does not grow in Egypt, where Anthony spent his lifetime. The association appears to come from a belief that rosebay willowherb could cure 'St Anthony's fire'.

While rosebay willowherb is ostensibly edible and has had traditional medicinal applications, I have not viewed any evidence towards this remedy or any others, and furthermore, given it often grows in heavily polluted sites and can carry toxic heavy metals, I must discourage the reader, like St Anthony, from the temptation of consuming this beautiful plant.

Waterman compares this plant, growing by the water's side and bowing to the surface, to 'a vain woman, proud of her charms' (226), from whence arises the American sentiment of pretension.

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Image source: North American Wild Flowers, Mary Vaux Walcott, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution (1925) via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

[glossahortensia]

Foxglove

Insincerity

Genus Digitalis Tourn. ex L. (1753)

The sentiment of folly, writes Phillips, rises from the flower spikes of the foxglove resembling the cap and bells of a jester.

The sentiment of youth, he writes, comes from the light down that covers the stalks of the foxglove, similar to the fuzz on children's cheeks. I suspect that Hooper's south is merely a typographical mistake for this.

Of stateliness, Waterman writes that the foxglove's towering flower spikes rising over the rest of the garden make this sentiment. I also note, however, this passage in Walter Scott's 1810 The Lady of the Lake:

Foxglove and nightshade, side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride, Grouped their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain.

which would seem to imply that foxglove is the emblem of pride, given Nightshade's association with poisoning - although it is notable that Digitalis, too, is a virulent poison, infamous in folk legend. Perhaps this is the root of the sentiment insincerity.

For this reason it gets name-dropped as a method of infanticide by the Decemberists' cheerful villain in 'The Rake's Song':

Charlotte I buried after feeding her foxglove.

The purple foxglove shown here, Digitalis purpurea L. (1753), is listed in Blackwoods' Magazine as the plant emblem of Scottish Highlands clan Farquharson (Clann Fhearchair).

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Image source: Digitalium Monographia, John Lindley et al., London: Richard and Arthur Taylor (1821) via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

[glossahortensia]

Plant Emblems: Kansas, The Sunflower State

c.1860s

The 'wild native sunflower' (specified as Helianthus) was signed into legislation as Kansas' state flower by Governor Willis Bailey on 12 March 1903, from a bill submitted by state senator from Council Grove George P. Morehouse. Morehouse had been moved by seeing Kansans wearing sunflowers as badges at rodeos in Colorado Springs.

Although other Kansans have been opponents of the sunflower (an 1895 state law designated it a 'noxious weed' that should be destroyed), it has long had its admirers in the state, with Noble Prentis, editor of the Atchison Champion, first nominating it as state emblem in 1880. It had been associated with the state from long before, however, with women's suffrage campaigners in Kansas adopting it for their cause as early as 1867.

In 1887, it was worn by Kansas delegates to the Grand Army of the Republic convention, and since the adoption in 1903 it has appeared on the collar device of the Kansas National Guard (from later that year), the Kansas quarter, and the state flag, designed by Topeka artist Albert T. Reid in 1919 and approved in modified form in 1925.

Flag of Kansas 1927-1961.

From the legislation, Kan. Stat. § 73-1801:

This flower has to all Kansans a historic symbolism which speaks of frontier days, winding trails, pathless prairies, and is full of the life and glory of the past, the pride of the present, and richly emblematic of the majesty of a golden future, and is a flower which has given Kansas the world-wide name, "the sunflower state".

Special thanks to the Kansas Historical Society for providing some of these sources in detail.

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Top image source: King's Hand-book of the United States planned and edited by M. King., M. F. Sweetser, Buffalo and London: Osgood, McIlvaine (1891) via the British Library.

[glossahortensia]

Monkshood

Knight-errantry

Aconitum napellus L. (1753)

The sentiment of knight-errantry likely requires some explanation for contemporary readers - it means to wander around in search for a quest, living the mercenary life of a knight of olden times, and from this arises the sentiment of chivalry, implied by knight-errantry.

Knight-errantry, too, implies a sort of foolhardiness; a kind of wild idleness that seeks adventure, seeing the quixotic as romantic, the danger as valour, and overlooking the potential pointlessness of a quest for the perceived valour, or that this is one's calling, and indeed purpose, regardless of its folly.

The first entry I have assigning knight-errantry is Henry Phillips' Floral Emblems. Phillips' entry quotes poet ◼︎ Charles-Louis Mollevaut, and paraphrases his passage:

Horrible, sur sa tête altière, L'Aconit, au suc malfaisant, Comme s'il s'armait pour la guerre, Élève un casque menaçant; Horrifying, on its haughty head, The aconite, with its poison, As if arming itself for war, Raises a menacing helmet.

The monkshood, says Phillips, 'rears its threatening helmet as if to protect the gayer favourites of Flora', and thus is the emblem of a knight.

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Image source: Illustrations of Medical Botany, Joseph Carson, illustrated by J.H. Colen, Philadelphia: R.P. Smith (1847) via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

[glossahortensia]

ABECEDARY

Volubility

Acmella oleracea (L.) R.K.Jansen (1985) (Jambu)

Most other floriography authors I have encountered, including some of the time, have assumed the 'abecedary' is a mistake - in usual parlance, an 'abecedary' was a written work composed of an entry for each letter of the Latin alphabet (imagine an 'ABC' book for children). The assumption is that, like the word 'poetry' originating from 'poesy', or a 'bouquet' (the two are synonymous in French), the abecedary arose from some confusion in translation and was copied between later incautious authors.

I am excited, therefore, to notice Delachénaye's identification of the jambu as her 'abécédaire', further noting in her entry that this is a colloquial name for the flower in French, arising from its petals seeming to have letter-like figures on them. I believe this is the source of the 'abecedary' of the English authors later on.

Of course, the criticism is otherwise fair - it's true that most authors appear to have copied from other sources, many with little discretion. Still, finding the identity of this flower has been a little victory in my research.

As Delachénaye herself writes, it seems only right to open this blog with the humble abecedary.

[glossahortensia]

GLOSSA HORTENSIA

What is this?

Glossa Hortensia is an online, in-depth encyclopaedia of floriography, better known as the language of flowers.

Rising to prominence in Western Europe and colonial European North America in the 19th century (the 1800s), floriography - from the Latin flora, meaning 'flower', and -graphy, meaning 'writing': 'flower-writing' - encoded different flowers with specific meanings, often drawn from famous poetry, ancient religions, and other pre-existing cultural symbolism such as folk tales, songs, or borrowing from 'exotic' cultures.

Over the century (and continuing today) many hundreds of books were likely published on the topic in all different languages, offering dictionaries of this flower-language for such varied purposes as sending secret messages to a lover, illustrating a memorial or invite for a special occasion, or even letter-for-letter ciphers and phonetic alphabets illustrated with flowers. While many of these books were intended as gifts or tokens for light entertainment, contemporary scholars such as Dr Brent Elliott of the Lindley Library and the late Beverly Seaton (may she rest in peace) have dedicated extensive work to examining their importance as manifestations of cultural movements of the time, including, but far from limited to, Orientalism, the growing push for women's education, the gradual secularisation of society, and the English Arts and Crafts movement which would later yield Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and the folk revival movements of the 20th century.

While much of this trend has been forgotten, there remains a fascination with floriography for contemporary audiences. This encyclopaedia aims to provide an academic-level lens on the language of flowers, building on other scholars' work, and creating a repository of botanical and cultural resources to inform a contemporary reader. In each entry, I go back to the source of the emblem and sentiment applied to it, confirm its botanical identity, provide the texts as they appear in the original works, and chase these back to their origins in poetry, myth, religion, and culture of the time.

This blog will provide updates as I add them to the main glossa.

Who are you?

I am Nev, an Australian writer, artist and gardener in my 30s. While I have a background in academia, I am no longer engaged in it professionally - I do this because I am driven to. Nonetheless, I hope one day I can publish this as a book, or transition it into a masters by research.

Why?

Frustration. I got sick of being unable to find the information I wanted in this sphere without wading through lies, ads for health supplements, and paywalls. All these texts are public domain; I am just doing the archival and the research. Some things we are driven to do.

Ask box is open. Catch you later.