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Sources of symbolism
Literature of antiquity, namely legends, folklore, mythology
Botanical symbolism has its origins in the literature of antiquity where plants are often used as metaphors for virtue and vice.
Classical texts on farming and natural histories by Pliny, Cato, and Lucretius, also recorded some of the traditional lore associated with plants. Many of these ideas were passed on to scholars and artists during the Renaissance.
For example, in classical Greek mythology, Narcissus was a young hunter known for his beauty whom many fell in love with. According to Ovid, the best known source of the story, Narcissus rejected all advances from others, eventually falling in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. He died tragically by pining away or by drowning when he tried to embrace the reflection. The gods pitied him and turned him into a flower.
The word narcissistic, which refers to a self-absorbed personality, egotism, or vanity, is derived from this.
Sources of symbolism
Religious writings also provided a wealth of plant symbolism. The bible and the Apocrypha contain many references to trees, fruits, and flowers in moralizing similes and parables. Christian writers from the early medieval period through the Renaissance also used botanical imagery to explain and interpret religious beliefs. The Virgin Mary, for example, is often likened to a white lily.
A third major source for plant symbolism was the medieval herbal that described the natural properties of plants, method for cultivating, and their use in cooking and medicine. These properties, as well as the plant's shape, color, taste, smell and season of blooming, lent themselves to a moral interpretation.
For example, the poisonous hemlock represents evil and death, while the clove with its three leaves was a symbol of the Holy Trinity.
Because of the wealth and variety of source materials, a single plant often had various, sometimes conflicting, meanings.
Sources of symbolism
From antiquity, then, plants, especially flowers, were considered symbolic of various emotions, attitudes, or states of mind in both religious and secular contexts that included myth, legend, folklore, literature, painting and art in general.
While such floriography was widespread during Medieval times, and "flowered" during the Renaissance, it lavishly "blossomed" during the Victorian era.
Floriography—the symbolic language of flowers (Discover magazine, Jan. 4, 2022)
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, 1609, Ophelia marches to her watery grave wearing a garland of flowers: crow-flowers, nettles, daisies and long purples. To the modern reader, this is mere description. But to a Victorian reader with a particular education, it could be much more.
The crow-flower was known as the “Fayre Mayde of France” at the time; long purples were likened to dead men’s hands or fingers; the daisy signified pure virginity; and nettles had the peculiarly specific meaning of being “stung to the quick,” or deeply and emotionally hurt.
In Louise Cortambert’s The Language of Flowers, adapted from a French book and first published in London in 1819, she offers a translation of the arrangement. For one, each of these flowers grow wild, “denoting the bewildered state of beautiful Ophelia’s faculties.” Together with the right arrangement, the flowers can be read as their own sentence: “A fair maid stung to the quick; her virgin bloom under the cold hand of death.”
Floriography—the symbolic language of flowers (Discover magazine, Jan. 4, 2022)
But as British social anthropologist Jack Goody notes in his own book, The Culture of Flowers, the history of this symbolic language of flowers is murky. Its more modern emergence, particularly in a series of what are essentially vocabulary books published in the 19th century, spark one question: Was this the discovery or the invention of tradition?
Early French literature from the 17th century made symbolic use of flowers and, as Goody argues, this practice was spurred on by a variety of other factors. Expanding trade with the East brought a whole host of exotic flowers to Europe, a rapidly expanding retail market increased the consumer base for flowers, a developing interest in the field of botany boosted demand for flowers, and widespread access to education—particularly in France—set the stage for a new floral lexicon.
But it was the letters of English writer Lady Mary Wortly Montagu, written while she lived in Turkey from 1716 to 1718, that seeded the idea of a codified language of flowers in England.
Floriography—the symbolic language of flowers (Discover magazine, Jan. 4, 2022)
In Eastern Europe and Asia, the blossoms boasted a rich communicative history as well. Lady Mary wrote of a codified Turkish language of objects.
Later on, other guidebooks joined Cortambert’s The Language of Flowers. Henry Adams published his Language and Poetry of Flowers in 1844. The Floral Kingdom: Its History, Sentiment and Poetry by George Daniels came out in 1891. Kate Greenaway’s The Language of Flowers was first printed in 1884, then reprinted in 1992 and 2013. And Catherine Klein published The Language of Flowers in Boston in 1900, around the latter end of the Victorian era.
These lists were, in a word, extensive.
Floriography—the symbolic language of flowers (Discover magazine, Jan. 4, 2022)
In Anna Christian Burke’s The Illustrated Language of Flowers, published in 1856, the flowers are organized alphabetically. Yet there are 49 entries for the letter "A" alone.
Yellow acacias supposedly spoke of secret love; aconite (or wolfsbane) was a messenger of misanthropy; the common almond suggested stupidity and indiscretion, while the flowering almond was a symbol of hope and the laurel almond a symbol of treachery.
This could present a bizarre form of communication for those in the know. Consider a Victorian lady mailing out a bundle of asphodel, which in this language means her “regrets follow you to the grave.” Sent to a grieving friend, this would likely be interpreted as a message of support. Sent to an ex-lover, it could mean something else entirely—depending on what else is in the bouquet. Add a bay leaf, which means “I change but in death,” and it becomes a statement of undying love. Add a belvedere, which spells out “I declare against you,” and perhaps the regret is that this ex-lover has lived so long.
Floriography—the symbolic language of flowers (Discover magazine, Jan. 4, 2022)
This language of flowers went on to inform the art and writing of later periods, according to Goody, particularly in the realms of French poetry and Impressionist painting. But the language, while having ties to traditional knowledge both in France (where it was most enthusiastically formalized) and in Eastern Europe and Asia, was not exactly a tradition rediscovered.
“In fact, the opposite is nearer the truth: we are in the presence of a deliberately created addition to cultural artefacts, a piece of initially almost fictive ethnography* which takes on an existence of its own as a product of the written rather than the oral,” Goody writes. Many of the guidebooks purported to explain a language forgotten by the reader, but known to their mother or grandmother.
Cortambert's book described the traditions of the Turkish people and the flower traditions of India, but contrasted them with European traditions―particularly in literature and chivalry, when the giving of favors and use of flower imagery was widespread.
Floriography—the symbolic language of flowers (Discover magazine, Jan. 4, 2022)
Indeed, flowers have been used in many places to mean many things, including throughout Europe. It was in this way that a Victorian language of flowers was an invention of sorts: The fixed, formal meanings attached to them simply didn’t exist before.
Even the earliest authors on the language struggled with this. As Burke notes: “The meaning attached to flowers, to have any utility, should be as firmly fixed as possible; no licence whatsoever has therefore been taken in creating or changing meanings. The Editor has simply confined herself to the task of making the best selection she could from the different sources of information at her disposal."
Floriography—the symbolic language of flowers (Denver Botanic Gardens, Feb. 23, 2022)
The Victorian Era was a time rich in technological advances, steeped in following proper social graces. Courtship was regimented, long, and had many watchful eyes on young people at social gatherings where they would hope to find a match. Victorians may have been repressed when it came to dating but were the most romantic when trying to gain the affection of those who caught their eye.
Rules of courtship and what was acceptable as romance led to the popular use of flowers as a secret language. Although flowers and herbs had been assigned meanings for centuries, it was Lady Mary Montague, the wife of the English ambassador to Turkey, who was responsible for popularizing the use of flowers as messages in Europe. Lady Mary Montague observed the Turks using flowers to communicate expressions of love and sometimes disdain. Enamored by this practice, she wrote letters to her friends in Great Britain describing this practice. Soon floriography dictionaries with lists of flowers and their meanings were all the rage in the United Kingdom and spread all over Western Europe.
Floriography—the symbolic language of flowers (Denver Botanic Gardens, Feb. 23, 2022)
Tussie Mussies were small, hand-tied bouquets given by suitors to let the apple of their eye know that they fancied them. The specific flowers and herbs used communicated a perfumed message of love and affection.
If the recipient was happy to receive the message, she would hold it close to her heart. If this affection was unwanted, she would hold it down by her side and in some instances, gave a return tussie mussie with specific flowers that meant she was not interested.
Even the placement of flowers within the bouquet had significant and intricate meanings. The act of flirting, exchanging desires, or rejecting a suitor could be communicated in a somewhat discrete way in a tussie mussie.
After a while, tussie mussies began to gain popularity in Victorian culture as gifts and sentiments to mark special occasions like graduations, weddings or the birth of a new baby.
Tussie-mussie—or nosegay? (from grammarist.com)
Tussie-mussie and nosegay have similar, but slightly different meanings.
A tussie-mussie is a small bouquet of flowers carried in a paper cone. An invention of the Victorian Era, suitors brought tussie-mussies to young ladies filled with flowers symbolizing subtle sentiments. For instance, a pink rose symbolized friendship. A marigold symbolized grief.
The origin of the word tussie-mussie is shrouded in mystery; many believe that there was an older word, tus or tusse, which meant a knot of flowers. The correct spelling according to the Oxford English Dictionary is tussie-mussie—with a hyphen.
A nosegay is also a small bouquet of flowers, tied together, originally used as a sweet-smelling way to mask the nasty odors of medieval times. A nosegay is not a gift and it is not placed in a paper cone. The word nosegay is a compound word that means something pleasant or bright for the nose, an accurate description of the original purpose of the nosegay.
Victorian Flower Meanings
Anemone- Forsaken
Bachelor Button- Single Blessedness
Carnation Red- My heart aches for you
Carnation Yellow- Rejection
Daffodil- Unrequited love
Dandelion- Faithfulness; happiness
Iris- Your friendship means so much to me
Ivy- Wedded love
Australian Flowers
Video interviews
New York Botanic Garden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=o1aea3uQvD4 (9:05-11:18)
Book's illustrator is Edith Rewa
Wattle
The golden wattle (Acacia pycnantha), the national flower of Australia, is native to much of southern Australia and blooms during springtime. It is a key part of the Australian landscape and is known for its bright golden flowers that stand out against green foliage. Green and gold are the national colors of Australia, and when wattle is in bloom, it does a great job of showing off these colors.
The golden wattle has held a special place in Australian culture since colonial times when it was used as a symbol to represent the unity between settlers from different countries. In 1988 it was officially declared the national flower by then Prime Minister Bob Hawke, cementing its status as an iconic symbol of Australia.
Wattle
Indigenous Australians have been using the golden wattle for a long time. Its gum was boiled in water and honey to make a sweet treat. The bark was known for its antiseptic properties.
When Australia was Federated in 1901, it was unofficially made the national flower. 12 years later, it was fully accepted when Prime Minister Andrew Fisher proposed adding it to the Commonwealth Coat of Arms. Now, it frames the shield on the coat of arms, showing how important it has been to the country.
Golden wattle
The golden wattle is a truly remarkable symbol of the Australian spirit. Not only does it represent resilience in the face of Australia’s sometimes harsh conditions, but it has also been used to commemorate and reflect on special historical moments.
For example, Australians are invited to wear a sprig of wattle on national days of mourning as an expression of solidarity. The golden wattle also appears frequently in official documents and awards, including stamps issued by Australia Post and emblems associated with the Order of Australia.
Sturt's desert pea (NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service)
One of Australia’s most famous desert wildflowers, Sturt’s desert pea is found across inland arid regions of Australia, including far west NSW. One of the most easily-recognised Australian native plants, Sturt’s desert pea thrives in red sandy soil, or loam, and has vibrant red leaf-shaped flowers with a black centre, known as a "boss."
Sturt’s desert pea is famous for its distinctive slender-tipped red flower. Although the floral emblem for South Australia, this easily-recognised wildflower is found throughout inland arid zones of Australia.
Sturt's Desert Pea—floral emblem of South Australia (Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne)
The Legend of the Sturt Desert Pea is a story of love, pain and loss and in that place where the tragedy occurred grew “The Flower of Blood” as the First Nations People call it.
The first explorers who ventured into the southern hemisphere were more interested in the cartography of the Great South Land. In 1699, on his second exploratory visit to the west coast of Australia the former buccaneer, explorer and writer William Dampier (1651-1715) collected several botanical species including the desert pea. He reportedly dried the specimens carefully, pressed the plants between pages of a book and took them together with some seeds, back to England. Today they are in the Herbarium at Oxford University.
Sturt’s Desert Pea, swainsona formosa, is a member of the pea family, adopted as the floral emblem of South Australia in November 1961. This distinctive plant is also on the current south Australian Coat of Arms.
Sturt's Desert Pea—floral emblem of South Australia (Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne)
Sturt’s Desert Pea grows in Australia in all States except Victoria and Tasmania, thriving in arid regions that receive between 125 and 250 mm of rain (6-10 in) each year. The plant is a horizontal creeper that runs for up to 2 metres along the ground with soft, silky grey leaves. The stems and leaves are covered in a hairy down.
The flower is about 9 cm long, like a bean blossom but larger. The petals are a deep, vibrant red colour with a black swelling known as a boss in the centre. The blooms cluster in groups of six to eight and the species creates a stunning display from spring through to summer.
Sturt’s Desert Pea seeds can lie dormant until the vital natural elements are in place for germination to occur.
Sturt's Desert Pea (Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne)
The species was named after the English botanist Isaac Swainson (1746-1812) and formosa, Latin for beautiful. Isaac Swainson was a keen botanist with an interest in medical botany.
Although Captain Charles Sturt (1795-1869) did not find the inland sea he believed existed on his expedition to central Australia in 1844, Sturt did comment in his journal, Narrative of an Expedition upon the displays of Swainsona formosa. He refers several times to the beauty of the desert pea in flower in contrast to the harsh nature of the plant’s habitat.
Sturt’s Desert Pea is a resilient, eye-catching plant with a story to tell.
Legend of the Sturt Desert Pea (Madonna magazine)
An Aboriginal tribe were camped in the desert. A young Aboriginal woman watched as her young man went out hunting. She was waiting for his return but he was gone a long time. The rest of the tribe decided they would have to move on, but the young woman refused to go and would wait for his return—they would follow and rejoin the tribe. As the tribe left they turned and saw the young woman still sitting, with a red cloak around her, waiting patiently for the young man.
As the tribe continued their travelling, they came once again to where they had left the young woman. But all they could find was a most beautiful flower with a black eye at its centre, right where the woman had been.
When the young man she desired had finally returned, the pair went against the wishes of her kin and eloped. They went to live with the young man's people in a tribe far away. The young woman eventually bears a child, a son whom the couple love dearly. The mother has a gift for singing the songs of the spirit, which she does often.
Legend of the Sturt Desert Pea (Madonna magazine)
One day the spirit warns her in a dream of impending danger, particularly concerning her son. The woman warns her husband but he is too complacent and disregards the message as foolishness. Shortly after, in the dark of the night the young woman's former husband, whom she had been promised to, sneaks up on them. He and his men kill them all; man, woman and child. Their blood now stains the soil and the boy's body is transformed into the first beautiful Red Desert Pea. His immortal life thus begins.
Author's Note
It was important to me that I fictionalised the central Australian settings Alice visits, lives and works in because to set those parts of this novel in existing places would be telling stories that aren’t mine to tell. . . .
Australia has a black history. It always was and always will be Aboriginal land.
From tripfiction
Memory is the fourth dimension to any landscape.” — Janet Fitch
I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was three years old, when my mother taught me to read. I grew up a block from the Pacific Ocean, on the Gold Coast, Queensland, where having to wear socks heralded a bitterly cold winter. I was always outdoors, in Mum’s garden, or at the beach, which I could smell through my bedroom window.
My favourite books were ones that reflected the world I lived in, the Australian classics, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs, and, Marmaduke the Possum, by Pixie O’Harris. Both were tales embedded in the Australian landscape from European storytelling perspectives.
From tripfiction
As soon as I learned to write, I starting writing stories, mostly tales about gum tree queens, butterfly elves, and wattle fairies. When Mum added Indigenous Australian books to my library, like Dick Roughsey’s The Rainbow Serpent, and, The Quinkins, my understanding of the relationship between stories and landscapes deepened.
As I got older and began to choose my own books, I picked young novels and fairytales, most of which were European or American. Likewise, the television and films I watched were primarily American, sometimes English, and least likely Australian. The tendency of my imagination’s preference for story settings began to change.
From tripfiction
When I was nine years old my family and I moved to North America. We rented a house in Vancouver, Canada, which we used as our base while we travelled in a camper van from national park to national park.
Living in North America was like jumping into one of Mary Poppins’ chalk drawings; it was the place I’d read about in my beloved Judy Blume books, seen on Disney television, and at the movies. North American place and culture created an exotic sense of wonder that my native Australian surroundings couldn’t match in my imagination.
After we returned to Australia a couple of years later, the stories I wrote were always set overseas, even if only implicitly. It didn’t feel like a conscious decision to separate my storytelling from my home, it felt like a default setting in my imagination.
From tripfiction
It wasn’t until I moved inland in my early twenties to live and work in an Aboriginal community in Australia’s western desert, learning and sharing culture and stories with Anangu colleagues, that my imagination started to realign.
In my writing I noticed more and more of a sense of Australian people, weather, bodies of water, flowers, and bushland began to creep onto my page.
When I was 29 I left Australia to move to England to give my writing dreams a wholehearted crack. The extreme contrast of my new life in moody, chilly northern England to my bright, hot home gave me a deep, renewed appreciation of the beauty and unique magic of my homeland.
From tripfiction
In 2014 when I sat down and wrote the first line of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, it was immediately clear the story was set in Australia. I wrote the entire first draft in Manchester.
My office became a trove of Australian native flora, scents, photos, and objects. I was driven to embody Alice’s world as much as possible, hungry for the sea I grew up beside, for the feeling of salty skin; for the mystifying green sugar cane fields at the end of my grandmother’s street; for the peach and silver-blue sunsets I’ve watched from my mum’s verandah; for the wildflowers and red dirt of my old desert home.
Remembering the places I’ve lived in, loved and left behind caused a hunger that went through me, like first love. It was blissful, unstoppable agony to write them to life on the page.
From tripfiction
Spanning two decades, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is set between sugar cane fields by the sea, a native Australian flower farm, and a celestial crater in the desert. All the settings in the novel are informed by places and people I’ve known and loved.
My experience of growing up on the southeast Queensland coast informed my portrayal of Alice’s childhood seaside world as much as my experience of living in central Australia informed my portrayal of Alice’s life in the desert.
I don’t feel I could have written any of this particular book without first hand sensory knowledge and connection of the landscapes and people I’ve fictionalised.
To me, fiction is emotional truth; this novel is wholly drawn from some level of understanding or experience I’ve had in my life of the diverse and dramatic Australian landscapes, and the people in them.
From Australian Indigenous Astronomy
Meteorite Craters
Australia is home to some 30 confirmed craters that formed from the impacts of comets, asteroids, and meteorites. These range in age form a few thousand years to over a billion years. Some of these craters are featured in Aboriginal traditions that describe their formation. These include the Henbury craters, Wolfe Creek Crater, Gosse’s Bluff crater, and Liverpool crater.
Many Indigenous cultures attribute meteoritic events to the power of sky beings. The Wardaman people of northern Australia tell of Utdjungon, a being who lives in the Coalsack nebula by the Southern Cross. He will cast a fiery star to the Earth if laws and traditions are not followed. The falling star will cause the earth to shake and the trees to topple. The Luritja people of Central Australia tell of an object that fell to Earth as punishment for breaking sacred law. And we can still see the scars of this event today.
From Australian Indigenous Astronomy
Wolfe Creek (Kandimalal)
Wolfe Creek Crater is one of the best-preserved and most spectacular meteorite craters in the world. It is situated in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, approximately 130 km south of Halls Creek, on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert.
The crater is known as “Kandimalal” in the Djaru language. It is recognised in oral traditions, personal experience, knowledge, art, and song by Djaru and other Aboriginal people. Djaru Elders refer to several stories relating to the crater. One refers to the passage of two rainbow snakes, which formed the nearby Wolfe Creek and Sturt Creek as they crossed the desert. In the Dreamtime, one snake emerged from the ground, forming the circular crater.
From Australian Indigenous Astronomy
Wolfe Creek (Kandimalal)
In 1999, John Goldsmith recorded a story about a “star” that fell from the sky and became buried in the ground, forming the crater. According to Djaru Elder Jack Jugarie, one day, the crescent moon and the evening star passed very close to each other. The evening star became so hot that it fell to the ground, causing an enormous explosion, flash, dust cloud and noise. This frightened the people and a long time passed before they ventured near the crater to see what had happened. When they ventured to the crater, it was realised that this was the site where the evening star had fallen to the Earth. The Djaru people then named the place “Kandimalal” and is prominent in arts from the region.
Another story relates to the sinkholes in the centre of the crater. One day, a Djaru man entered the crater and saw water in the sinkholes. He entered a sinkhole to discover a passage that went several kilometres underground to emerge at a nearby creek. After a considerable trek, he emerged into daylight. It is said that because of the link from the crater sinkholes and the creek, the crater floor never floods. This story is recounted with particular delight, noting the risk of snakes in the sinkholes and the darkness of the underground passages, highlighting the man’s bravery.
Wolfe Creek Crater National Park
This is the second largest meteorite crater on Earth. The ridge of the crater stands about 35 metres above the surrounding flat sand plain. The outer edges slope at a gradual 15 degrees, but the much steeper inner walls fall away at about a 50 degree angle.
The crater is known as Janyil in Jaru and as Karntimarlarl in Walmajarri. Traditional Owners believe this circular crater was formed when a giant mythological snake raised its head from the ground back long ago at the time of creation. Aboriginal people understand many natural features, such as rivers and creeks, are the tracks left by giant ancestral snakes that once weaved their way across the desert. Scientists believe Wolfe Creek was formed by the impact of a meteorite as long as 300,000 years ago.
Geologists F Reeves and D Hart were the first non-Aboriginal people to come across this striking natural feature while conducting an aerial survey of the Canning Basin in 1947. In 1969 Wolfe Creek Crater was gazetted as a C class reserve. In 1976 protection of the area was upgraded to the status of Class A Reserve.
Video interviews
New York Botanic Garden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app= desktop&v=o1aea3uQvD4
State Library of Queensland
https://vimeo.com/644198429
Gardening Australia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X018IISJNtw
Next week
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
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