The Garden of the Heart: Flower Language

That flower to the left, in the second photo from the top of page: It's called "Bleeding Heart." So in the language of flowers, what does it mean to send one of these to someone else?

            Does it mean you express your emotions openly? Or is it meant to say "spurned or rejected" affection? Or that the recipient is too sensitive? Does it express your unconditional love for all creation? Or your belief in a connection between two people enduring beyond life?

            Well, actually, all of them, according to the sources I discovered online when I tried to learn something about the language of flowers.

            Also called floriography, "flower language "is a means of cryptological communication through the use or arrangement of flowers," according to Wikipedia. I.e. a code.

            The sources find it rooted in ancient cultures, citing symbols in the Hebrew Bible's "Song of Songs," and practices throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Some cite its development (or 'flowering'?) in the Ottoman Empire, before it spread to western Europe. In Elizabethan England we find the 'meanings' of flowers playing a prominent role in Ophelia's "mad scene" in Shakespeare's "Hamlet."

            The practice boomed in 19th century England and the United States, a response I'm guessing to the Romantic movement in poetry and the other arts.

            The repressive code of manners in Victorian England furthered the use of gifts of flowers, or specific flower arrangements (I find), to say things "that could not be spoke aloud" in gentile society.

            I'm not a big fan of repression. On the other hand, if it opened the door to "saying it" with flowers, that's kind of cool.

            And I can't believe that there isn't a Japanese equivalent .

            Here's a glossary of the emotional correspondences assigned to many common flowers: http://thelanguageofflowers.com/

            So if someone offers you a blue hyacinth, that's an expression of "constancy."

            A violet? "Modesty" (bottom photo). Which, as a compliment, can cover a lot of ground.

            The red peony pictured at the top of the page -- I like this one: "Happy marriage."

            Forget-me-nots, not surprisingly, signify either 'true love' or 'memories.'

            And "ivy" -- there seems to be a big call for flower sentiments of this kind -- expresses "wedded love" and "fidelity."  Of course there are also many varieties of ivy (I don't think they were thinking of poison ivy). English ivy, maybe.

            It's not all good. A cyclamen (a good wintertime indoor plant) signifies "resignation" or even "goodbye."

            A daffodil, of which we see so many in the early spring, stands for "unrequited love." Wow, that's a lot of heartache.

            A begonia means "beware."   

            And a primrose (fourth photo down) means "I can't live without you."
             I agree. I can't live without flowers. Or what they mean.