Ranunculus to You: Vine to Xeranthemum

VINE   “Intoxication”*

            The floriographers are obviously thinking of grape vines, and, hence, wine.  They could have thought of grape jelly, but for some reason, did not think of thinking of it.

*VINE, WILD   “Poetry and Imagination”

VIOLET   “Modesty”*

            The violet is considered a hidden, humble flower.  It was also the symbol of Napoleon.  If you see the connection, let me know.

            One book which attests to this meaning is by the least likely floriographers I ran into.  In the 1840s and 1850s, Jane Webb Loudon brought out a five volume set of beautiful (and now ferociously expensive) books, The Ladies’ Flower Garden of Ornamental Flowers, followed by a similar volume called British Wild Flowers.  These are largely horticultural, but she did manage to wedge in a modest amount of flower language.

            But, see, Jane Webb came into the appropriately feminine world of gardening and flowers by way of science fiction.  In her teens, she wrote The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century.  The social theories she expounded in and among the sensations made a fan of John Loudon, a crusading horticulturist leading England away from the wildly picturesque gardens which had been in fashion toward a more orderly (and less expensive) style of garden.  He sought an introduction to the author of The Mummy, and they hit it off, though when they were married, he was nearly double her age.  Jane turned to nature writing and, as far as is known, never strayed into science fiction again.

VIOLET, AFRICAN   “Such Worth is Rare”

            And so was the African Violet, so far as floriographers were concerned.  The rarity of African violets in flower language books results, I am told, from the fact that the African violet was very difficult to grow at home until the advent of the electric light, by which time flower language was on the wane.  The multitude of African Violets we see today results from an African Violet craze in the 1920s.

VIOLET, BLUE   “Faithfulness”

Violet, Dame’s:   see QUEEN’S ROCKET

VIOLET, PARMA   “Let Me Love You”

VIOLET, PURPLE   “You Occupy My Thoughts”

            A close relative of the Pansy, which explains the meaning.

VIOLET, SWEET   “Modesty”

            But Geoffrey Grigson says this was one of the chief plants of Priapus, because the scent reminded people of sex.  For further details, see (and hear) any of the under-the-counter recordings of the song “Sweet Violets”.  Even the Dinah Shore version will give you some hints.

VIOLET, WHITE   “Candor”*

            Because, they tell me, candor comes before innocence, as white violets came before blue ones.  Sometimes I think this makes sense, and sometimes I just sit and wonder.

VIOLET, WILD   “Love In Idleness”

            This is another Pansy relative.

VIOLET, YELLOW   “Rural Happiness”

VIRGIN’S BOWER   “Filial Love”

            See also TRAVELER’S JOY

VISCARIA OCULATA   “Will You Dance With Me?”

            This is a kind of Catchfly, which may have a lot to do with the meaning.

VOLKAMERICA JAPONICA   “May You Be Happy”

            This is also spelled Volkamenia japonica in the books.  And Volkamenica japonica.  And just about anything else which seems halfway reasonable.

                                                                        W

*WALKING-LEAF   “How Came You Here?”

            I walked, apparently.

WALLFLOWER   “Fidelity in Adversity”*

            Yes, there actually is a plant called the Wallflower, so named because it clings to walls.  It is especially found growing on the walls of broken-down houses, and is thus a symbol of sticking with something even at the depths of bad luck.  The fact is that if someone WERE still living within the walls, they’d probably pull the wallflowers down.

            Sheila Pickles has a story about specific walls belonging to a castle with a tower from which a maiden cast herself to her death.  There are other romantic stories like this, if you care to look.

            Some floriographers refer to this plant as Bloody Warrior, because they see these red flowers as defenders of the walls, and thus make the meaning “Defense”.

WALNUT   “Intellect”

            The nut happens to look like a brain, that’s all.  Some floriographers use the meaning “Stratagem” for much the same reason (Strategy comes from the brain, y’see.)  George O’Neill, always on hand to straighten things out, said the American Walnut would mean “Stratagem” and the English Walnut “Intellect”, but the rest of the floriographers failed to pick up on this suggestion.

WALNUT LEAF   “Unburden Me”

*WALNUT TREE   “Persecuted Innocence”

WATCHER-BY-THE-WAYSIDE   “Never Despair”

*WATER-CALTROP   “Hidden treason”

*WATER-CALTROP FRUIT   “Danger of Costing You Anything”

            This is also known as the Water Chestnut. Which is not to be confused with the plant known as Chinese Water Chestnut.  HOWEVER, I am further informed, neither of these is even related to the Water Chestnut you get at your local Asian restaurant.  I coulda been a full-time dog walker, y’know.  I don’t HAVE to do this.

Water Lily:   see LILY, WATER

WATERMELON   “Bulkiness”

            Whatever else COULD it mean?

WATER STAR   “Beauty Combined With Piety”

            Frances S. Osgood includes this in both of her books, but no other floriographer does.

*WAX BERRY   “Confiding Trust”

WAX PLANT   “Susceptibility”

            This is a type of Hoya, probably as susceptible as the rest of the family to being woven into shapes.

*WEED   “I Would Bloom If I Could”

            The reason only one floriographer bothered with this is that, frankly, half the plants in this book have been considered weeds at some point or another.  And, anyhow, weeds do SO bloom.

WEIGELA   “Accept a faithful Heart”

WHEAT   “Riches”*

            Even Morato’s book agrees with this, and adds that the implication is that these are riches honestly obtained.

Whin:   see GORSE

Whortleberry:   see BILBERRY

*WILDFLOWER   “Fidelity in Misfortune”

            This MUST have been a misprint or misreading of WALLFLOWER.

WILLOW   “Forsaken”

Folkard says the Willow has been a symbol of grief since Psalm 137 was written.  There was also a saying that someone was “wearing the willow” for someone else.  This meant there had been a break-up but the person was still in love, and grieving at being forsaken.

*WILLOW, BRANCH   “I Want Nothing Of You At All”

            We would say “I want nothing FROM you”.

WILLOW, CREEPING   “Love Forsaken”

            Is this a typo for Weeping Willow, or a reference to a plant known as the Creeping Primrose-Willow?

WILLOW, RENCH   “Bravery and Humility”

WILLOW HERB   “Pretension”*

            I am told that this is sometimes known as Rosebay.  There have been weeks when every plant I looked up was “also known as Rosebay”.  Spiked Willow Herb, also known as Rosebay, is also given the meaning “Pretension”.

WILLOW HERB, ROSEBAY   “Celibacy”

            I just don’t want to talk about it.

Willow Herb, Spiked:   see WILLOW HERB

Willow, Pussy: see PUSSYWILLOW

WILLOW, WATER   “Freedom”

WILLOW, WEEPING   “Mourning”

*WILLOW, WHITE   “False love”

WISTERIA   “I Cling to Thee”

WITCH HAZEL   “A Spell”

            Some people say the way this plant bloomed in cold weather was spooky, supernatural.  Others tell me the name comes from Wych Hazel, which simply means Bendable Hazel.  You can see which witch the floriographers favored.

Wolfsbane:   see ACONITE

WOODBINE   “Fraternal Love”

*WOODPECKER’S TONGUE   “You Shall Have What You Desire”

            I was worried about this for a long time, but I’ve decided to let it pass.

WORMWOOD   “Absence”*

            Is this a bit of wordplay, since this is the plant that provides us with absinth?  (Indeed, it is sometimes called Absinth.)  Or is it simply a matter of the plant being so bitter it is a handy reference for the bitterness of a lover’s absence?

WOODRUFF   “Modest Worth”

            Joseph E. Meyer calls this “Sweet Woodruff…a favorite little plant…with a pleasant smell, which, like the good deeds of the worthiest persons, delights by its fragrance most after it has been dried.”  I would not add one word to that.

                                                                        X

Xanthium:   see CLOTBUR

XERANTHEMUM   “Cheerful Under Adversity”

            No, as a matter of fact, this is not at all related to the Chrysanthemum, but thanks for asking.  It’s more closely related to Everlasting, but that just doesn’t feel right, somehow.

More Kids With Lids

     In our last thrilling installment, we were discussing how boys, on postcards but also outside in the world, would pretend to be grown-ups by donning a grown-up hat, most usually a silk topper.  Well, girls were liable to the same strategy.

     Little girls tended to wear bonnets, like the girl at the top of this…well, maybe not exactly like hers.  She’s overdoing it a bit.  But you get the general idea.  Something close to the head without elaborate brims of decorations, was the norm for lasses with single-digit ages.  A big, fancy hat was meant to draw attention, to show off a grown woman’s style and fashion (and availability and, to some degree, general uselessness.  Fashion designers understood early the assertion of Oscar Wilde that anything useful could not be a work of art.  A really big hat made movement slower and more calculated, particularly on windy days.)

     So a little girl in a big hat was cute and funny, as was this young lady who is confident in the work of her dressmaker, though her hatmaker is really more responsible for the effect.

     This young lady, now, understands that it’s really all about the accessories.  These things worked when her older sister went to a dance, so why shouldn’t that bow and parasol and, especially, that hat, do the same for her?

     You simply couldn’t help but impress the opposite sex if you had the right hat.

     Though the fashionably set-up young lady, like that supposed older sister, could not be too careful.  One had to take at least as good care of one’s reputation as one did of one’s look.

     The men would certainly flock around one once that hat was donned.  A smart girl kept an eye out for sharpers like this lad, who has also put on a hat worn by his elders.  He isn’t pulling the hat over HER eyes.

     Of course, as this lady with a 1920s style hat suggests, impressing the opposite sex isn’t the whole point of looking good.  A hat can be a serious reflection of one’s self-image and a gauge of one’s self-worth.

     Only once she has those important commodities assured can a lady confidently use her smile…and her big grown-up hat…in the battle between the sexes.  This hat-wearer advertises that she’s looking, but her attitude and big umbrella show she’s perfectly comfortable going for a walk with little more than those.  Male companionship might be entertaining, but isn’t essential to a lady with the Right Hat.

     Our cartoonists, in fact, sometimes worried that the young man would be swept away by a woman with a big hat, someone who would ensnare the poor innocent lad, who would find himself left at home to mind the children while his mate headed back into the world, hat on head, to enjoy a busy life in the world.  The lesson was clear: Be the wearer big or small, a grown-up hat could do it all.

Kids and Their Lids

     If you recall from last week, we were beginning to discuss postcards which show children dressing up like their elders.  (Yes, we actually spent that column talking about all the postcards we were NOT going to talk about.  But work with me here.)  A quick examination of the cards shows that one of the unmistakable signs of a child playing grown-up is a big person’s hat.

     Once upon a time, see, clothes made the grown-up.  Boys wore short pants until they went through puberty, and girls wore short skirts.  Only the adults in the population were allowed to cover their knees.  (There must have been some allowances made in parts of the world where snow predominated.  But these aren’t things that wind up in family albums, or, for the most part, on postcards.)  And as for hats, boys wore caps and girls wore bonnets.  Brims and floral arrangements (often with stuffed birds attached) were reserved for those who had made it to marriageable age and were advertising their availability.

     The heroine of the picture at the top of this column, for example, wears only a bow in her hair, quite acceptable for schoolkids.  The male specimen she is obviously falling for wears the perfectly acceptable childhood knickerbockers, an odd military blouse, and a slightly battered grown-up hat, which I think is what’s really sending her into swoons.  Look at the rest of his clothes, child!  Run the other way!

     The symbol, though, of a small boy wanting to look grown up is the top hat.  The morning coat and boutonniere help, of course, in this vision, but it’s that top hat which really makes us know he is being very adult.

     The top hat started to come into fashion in the late eighteenth century, when legend claims its inventor was arrested for wearing headgear intended to frighten timid passersby.  It was made of felt, which was made with mercury, and led to the deaths of many beavers whose fur was used in the felt and hatters, who went mad from the mercury poisoning,  But after a while, silk was substituted, and it is the silk top hat worn by males in the western world which became an icon.  We don’t need to go into the history of its various relatives—the stove-pipe hat, which was a really tall top hat, or the spring-loaded top hat, so beloved of animated cartoons in the 1930s—but it was THE headgear for serious men of business for nearly two generations.

     At some point, which the Interwebs are hazy about, it started to take on ironic subtexts.  Gradually, it became the headgear only of the wealthy aristocrat and the wild, partying rich playboy.  This happened at around the same time that the postcard was becoming the quick communication system of the western world, and here, we really see our kids putting them on.

     This chap, headed out on the town, has his topper, his walking stick, and a romper version of evening wear.  If we had any doubt what he was planning to do tonight, he makes it clear.

     A boys’ night out requires several of these party-mad dandies, and Mabel Lucie Attwell has provided us with a fivesome, giving them full formal attire, with walking sticks and monocles to emphasize the joke.

     Yes, a few businessmen still emphasized the serious nature of their jobs by wearing top hats to work, like this young man, the subject of a series of postcards by Kathleen Mathew showing important intervals in a businessman’s day.  He is putting on his hat, ready to leave work at precisely five p.m., but I have seen the rest of the series, and know he stops off for a quick one (or two) at the club on his way, so the party boy with the top hat is still present in this picture.

     And this chap is simply filled with emotion at the thought of his love.  (But to judge by the ferocity of his hug, and her look of surprise, I suspect he’s had a few, too.)

     So if you saw a Baby New Year in a top hat welcoming in 2023, you saw that the joke lives on.  The small boy pretending to be a grown-up, and entitled to full festivities, is a child in a top hat, and our postcard artists knew that was the only way to….

     Okay, there’s always got to be an exception to prove the rule.  Nice hat, bro.

Ranunculus to You, Tamarisk to Vetch

                                                            T

TAMARISK   “Crime”

            Ancient Egyptians believed  that the corpse of the murdered god Osiris was tucked into a Tamarisk, to conceal the crime.  Further, the Romans put wreaths of tamarisk on their criminals.  (Do you think they had a wreath for everybody?  A wreath of, oh, cauliflower for great dog breeders?)

TANSY   “I Declare Against You”

            The Italians, descendants of the Romans mentioned in the previous entry, still, we are told, swap certain flowers to convey certain messages.  This is one they hand around when they want to insult somebody.  A popular minority meaning for this is “Resistance”, either because in declaring war on a person you intend to resist all efforts to make up your differences, or because it was one of the plants used to resist contagion during epidemics in the Middle Ages.

*TARRAGON   “Promptitude, Earliness”

TEASEL   “Misanthropy”*

            Fuller’s Teasel, or Teasle, or Teazle, or even Fuller’s Thistle, has stickers on it, which gives it its meaning, but it is not a thistle.

TENDRILS OF CLIMBING PLANTS   “Ties”

THISTLE   “Austerity”*

            “Misanthropy” is a close second; both meanings come from it being a prickly plant which grows in wasteland.  Robert Tyas hurries to state that this is not a slam at the Scots, whose symbol it is, as you can read below.

THISTLE, SCOTCH   “Retaliation”

            The Scots motto that goes with this is “Who Dares Meddle With Me?” meaning, of course, that if anyone makes trouble, I will RETALIATE.  This and the use of the thistle as a Scottish symbol go back to the days of the Danish invasions, when, and I promise I am not making this up, Scotland was saved from a sneak attack when one of the barefoot Danes stepped on a thistle and yelped, alerting the Scots, who came out and whomped their whole army.

            This may seem a lowly thing to credit with saving your country but, after all, the entire Roman Empire was once saved by a flock of geese.

THORNAPPLE  “Deceitful Charms”*
            Some floriographers draw a line between this and a similar plant, Stramonium, giving that the meaning “Disguise”, but it all comes out of the fact that this sort of plant is poisonous.

            In fact, Thornapple is one of the Great American Poisonous plants, first encountered by settlers in Jamestown in 1603, hence its nickname Jamestown Weed, shortened to jimsonweed.  Scientifically known as Datura stramonium, it is an ugly and foul-smelling plant (as Will Cuppy notes, about the last thing anybody would eat), often found among garbage, for which reason the Natives called it White Man’s Plant.  Some people must have thought the flowers pretty, though, hence all the indignation about the poison hidden inside.

            The Lady’s Album, however, takes another tack.  The June, 1845 issue notes that Thornapple is an evening bloomer, exactly like a languorous society woman, who blooms only at night when the light is not good enough to show her for what she is.  The flower also gives off a perfume which can cause lightheadedness or other inebriety, perhaps also like the society woman, though The Lady’s Album doesn’t go that far.  The magazine seems to have picked this up from Robert Tyas, who may have found it in Mme. De Latour.

THORN, EVERGREEN   “Solace in Adversity”

*THORN, FIERY   “Resistance”

THORNS, BRANCH OF   “Severity, Rigor”

THRIFT   “Sympathy”

            Not one floriographer chose “Thrift” as a meaning.  Just when you think you’ve got them figured out, they pull something like this.

THROATWORT   “Neglected Beauty”

            Henry Phillips chose this meaning for the Throatwort, which he felt had been neglected by painters, poets, and sculptors.

            I have myself neglected a few Greek and Roman flower myths, by the way, but only because most of the floriographers seem to have done so as well.  In case you thought the floriographers noticed every single orgy in the books, they ignored the legend of the Daisy, once an innocent nymph named Bellis until she was changed into a flower to escape Vertumnus, perhaps the same satyr who married Pomona.  The Orchid was once a lad named Orchis, who got drunk and disorderly and was ripped to pieces by followers of Bacchus, only to have certain parts of him brought back to life as a flower.

            One wonders if the Greeks thought there were any plants at all on Earth before the satyrs and nymphs started chasing each other around the mulberry bush (if there was even a mulberry bush.)

THYME   “Activity”*

            The Greeks ate this to revive their appetite and give them more energy.  Someday anthropologists will be studying us and oat bran, so I guess there’s nothing to say.

THYME, WILD   “Thoughtless”

            When having a wild time, one could get thoughtless.

TIGER FLOWER   “For Once May pride Befriend Me”

Tiger Lily:   see LILY, TIGER

TOOTHWORT   “Secret Love”

            This plant is known for blooming in out-of-the-way places, often under moss or leaves.

Touch-Me-Not:   see BALSAM

TRAVELLER’S JOY   “Gaiety”

            They tell me that this clematis, sometimes known as Virgin’s Bower, is shaped like a sheltering bower, a sort of little booth into which a traveler could retreat to get in out of the sun, or rain. )Symbolic, of course, since you could not squeeze in here if you were more than about half an inch tall.)

TREFOIL   “Revenge”

            Bird’s Foot Trefoil has the same meaning.

TREMELLA NESTOC   “Resistance”*

            This is a kind of algae also known as Star Jelly.  It was apparently scraped up and used as a medicine (to RESIST disease) because some people thought it fell from stars.  Some still do.

TRILLIUM PICTUM   “Modest Beauty”

TRIPTILION SPINOSUM   “Be Prudent”

TRUFFLE   “Surprise”*

            These are those fungoid morsels you dig up from underground. It’s a Surprise to find one.

            Robert Benchley tells the tale of how he pretended to be a gourmet expert when it came to truffles, confident in the assumption that he would never be called on to eat one.  He reports that when he was served his first truffle by someone who expected him to be an expert, the experience was surprising.

TRUMPET FLOWER   “Fame”

            Whether you are blowing your own trumpet or someone is blowing it for you.

TRUMPET-FLOWER, ASH-LEAVED   “Separation”

            Caroline Waterman says the leaves fall ff very easily, thus suffering separation.

TUBEROSE   “Dangerous Pleasures”

            The tuberose has a thick, almost sickeningly sweet perfume.  The Victorians seem to have liked their perfumes thick and heady, and believed this scent to be the most intoxicating of all.  And since anything that intoxicated was dangerous, they made the flower a symbol of dangerous pleasures.  Nowadays, of course, we believe any pleasure is dangerous.  If you’re enjoying anything which doesn’t make you richer or healthier, you’re supposed to stop it right now and get with the program.

TULIP   “Declaration of Love”*

Tulips generally, and red tulips especially, carry this meaning.  A number of floriographers declare that the black base of the blossom symbolizes the cinder to which your heart has been burnt by the fiery passion of your love, symbolized by the red petals.  Claire Powell says the original meaning in the orient was “Violent Love”, which obviously goes along with the same symbolism.  But Laura Peroni claims the best known meaning around the world is “Inconstancy”.  Laura Peroni is, for some reason, the only floriographer who knows about the best known meaning in the world.

*TULIP, UPSIDE-DOWN   “Blatant Rejection”

Tulip, Red:   see TULIP

TULIP, VARIEGATED   “Beautiful Eyes”

TULIP, YELLOW   “Hopeless Love”

TULIP TREE   “Rural Happiness”

TURNIP   “Charity”

            Henry Phillips says the turnip was used in coats of arms to denote someone with a good disposition, and is thus a good symbol for charity.  I, personally, believe it’s because turnips are some of the easiest things to give away.

Tussilage:   see COLTSFOOT

                                                                        U

*UMBRELLA PLANT   “Have No Fear; Have Covered Everything”

            Umbrella?  Covered Everything?  That George O’Neill can be such a card.

                                                                        V

VALERIAN   “Accommodating Disposition”

            The floriographers liked Valerian because it had a nice scent and bloomed anywhere, year round.  Very accommodating of it.

VALERIAN, GREEN or BLUE-FOLOWERED GREEK   “Rupture”*

            Claire Powell explains that a number of Greek kings argued about which one of them had discovered this nifty plant, and it led to a rupture in international relations (a war.)

VENUS’S CAR   “Fly With Me”

            Everyone who lists this plant agrees on this meaning.  But they can’t agree on which flower they’re talking about.  Some say it’s Betony, which is sometimes called Venus-In-Her-Car.  Others say it’s a kind of Aconite known as Venus’s Chariot, or, if one has the time, Venus’s-Chariot-Drawn-By-Two-Doves.  And a lot of people have tried to convince me it was all merely a misprint for Venus’s Ear.  You can’t fly with someone in an ear.  You can have a fly IN your ear.

VENUS’S FLYTRAP   “Deceit”

            All the flycatching plants are given sinister meanings, as if a plant was just supposed to accept the flies and not fight back.  No one has told me what Venus has to do with flytraps, though a certain number of people have informed me that this is a kind of plant which grows on the planet Venus.  A bunch of these people also believe Elvis is on the planet Venus, watering the flowers.

VENUS’S LOOKING GLASS   “Flattery”

            Venus owned a mirror which flattered anybody who looked into it.  Venus was ascendantly beautiful, and needed no such flattering looking-glass, but sometimes she thought she did.  (I have days like that.)  Cupid, her son, once caught a peasant looking into the mirror.  What happened next depends on which story you read.  Some say the peasant decided he was so good-looking he didn’t need to work any more.  Cupid then smashed the mirror to keep mankind from giving in to vanity and sloth.  Other versions claim Cupid was just disgusted at seeing a rustic, homely face gazing into his mother’s mirror, and smashed the mirror so no other yokels could look into it.  Either way, these flowers grew from the smashed pieces of the looking-glass.  None of them say much about what Mom did when she found out about the broken mirror (but maybe that’s where the whole Seven Years’ Bad Luck idea comes from.  And what became of the peasant?  Shouldn’t he have been turned into a…why don’t we just move on?

Veronica:   see SPEEDWELL

VERVAIN   “Enchantment”*

            This is also known as Verbena; it can get listed under both names in the same book sometimes.  When it is called Wormwood, it always gets a separate entry, so see also that.

            Vervain was traditionally used in numbers of potions and spells, and also sometimes called Holy Herb.  Sax Rohmer, the author who gave us Fu Manchu, also wrote about a detective, Moris Klaw, who carried a perfume atomizer and spritzed the crime scene with Verbena before working on the case, so he would pick up the right psychic vibrations.  I do not believe this caught on with law enforcement generally.

VERVAIN, PINK   “Family Union”

VERVAIN, SCARLET   “Church Union”

            There is an implication for both of these meanings of people uniting against a common foe.

VERVAIN, WHITE   “Pray for Me”

VETCH   “Shyness”

VETCH, MILK   “Your Presence Softens My Pain”

Clothes Make the Kid

     WHAT is so cute as a small child dressing up in grown-up clothes?  Once cameras were accessible to the everyday consumer, few collections of family pictures did not include at least one photo of Boopsy putting on Dad’s hat or Mom’s shoes.  Swiping one’s parents attire was a great way to play grown-up, or, if the child was of a more prosaic disposition, just getting an immediate laugh from the big people in the house.  It was sometimes good training for one’s teen years, if your parents were your size and wore something cool enough to borrow on a night out.

     Postcard cartoonists were certainly aware that cute was a constant seller, hence all the puppies and kitties we have discussed hereintofore.  So I thought I would show off a few postcards dealing with young people dressed in attire obviously designed for older wearers.

     First, however, I need to set up a few rules.  There is an endless array of postcards like the one at the top of the column.  We have discussed before how our ancestors regarded nudity as thoroughly cute, at least in small children.  So adding a few adult accessories made it all that much cuter.  So I wasn’t going to cover THAT entire genre.

     Overalls were considered a farmer’s workday clothes throughout much of the land, so kids in overalls turn up frequently, as they pretend to be grownups

     The problem with this is that overalls being such a functional garment, lots of children wear those anyhow.  The gag here is not so much what they’re wearing as what they’re doing.

     So children in overalls don’t really count toward this topic.

     Even though this rules out a long and heartwarming series of postcards about Little Breeches, who appears in overalls in postcards showing what he would like to be when he grows up.  The puppy and hat and overalls stay pretty much the same, whether he is imagining being a circus performer, a fireman, or what have you.  It all ends with a postcard of him in his jammies, kneeling at his bedside, praying to be a good man when he grows up.  We will not discuss him (and the poem that inspired them, possibly THE most famous poem ever written by a U.S. Secretary of State) in this column.

     The same thing goes for all the postcards which show small boys dressed as cowboys.  The cowboy was a hero of popular culture before the postcard was even invented, so naturally, kids were dressing up as cowboys long ago.  Once again, as with the overalls, the clothes just set the scene.

     Children in cowboy hats were not, by that fact alone, supposed to be awfully cute or funny.  Sometimes, as here, the attention to detail made things more chortleworthy, but, again, we’re not affected by the thought “Hey, this kid’s way younger than his clothes!’

     Now, having covered that, we can go on to…oh.  Out of room for today.  Well, maybe next week.

Titles and Names

     Yes, Virginia, there WAS a B. Dalton.  Sort of.

     I was discussing some icons of American kitchens the other day, and going over the fact that there WAS a Duncan Hines and a Chef Boyardee, while Betty Crocker was a marketing construct.  As this is not a food blog, as mentioned hereintofore, I don’t think there’s any need to cover that.  Besides, I am not going to get into a fight with doubters over whether there really is a Pillsbury Doughboy and whether he is taller than Lucky, the leprechaun who works the cereal trade.

     But as someone who has strolled along the streets of Chicago, popping in when possible at Powell’s or Kroch’s and Brentano’s, I thought I might explore the lesser-known question of bookstore names while a few still exist.  Most bookstores were named for people, with the exception, say, of Crown, named for headgear, Waldenbooks, named for a pond, or Amazon, named for a river or a warrior or something.  (Anyway, who remembers nowadays that Amazon started as a bookselling business?)

     Border’s was started by college kids Tom and Louis Borders in 1971.  It was a small, local chain in Michigan until it was bought out by Kmart, which had recently bought Waldenbooks as well.  Kmart, with much effort, was able to prove that running a bookstore and running a department store are different occupations.  After much national expansion, followed by international expansion, the chain shrank and dwindled until it was absorbed into Barnes & Noble.

     Barnes & Noble is an old-fashioned American business story, though there is a kind of regional divide in accounts of its history, some stories beginning with Arthur L. Hinds & Co. in New York in 1886 and some with Charles M. Barnes in Wheaton, Illinois in 1873.   Wikipedia says there was a Hinds & Noble period, but the official Barnes & Noble history leaves out Mr. Hinds and instead sees Barnes’s son moving to New York to team up with Gilbert Clifford Noble.  At that point, things become clearer, and it is obvious that these two chaps went a long way toward pioneering the modern bookstore.  All accounts agree they were the first store to pipe in Muzak, and a modern pioneer in encouraging people to loiter and read a while before buying.

     Rizzoli’s was started by Angelo Rizzoli in 1964, and operated in New York for a good decade or more until it thought about branching out.  The Chicago store, where I encountered it and its Rizzoli Gallery (and its unbelievably eccentric background music) opened in 1976.  The chain did not grow large, and was pulled back into the main New York location in this latest century.  They became more widely famous for their publishing business, which also continues today.

     I see we are running out of space, so some important Chicago bookstores will have to wait for a later installment.  Besides, although I THINK I now know the difference between Kroch’s and Brentano’s and the New York based Brentano’s, but I have yet to decipher the relationship between Oregon’s Powell’s and Chicago’s Powell’s.  Anyway, we now know there were….

     What’s that, Kafka Knish?  Oh, yes, B. Dalton!  Well, see, once upon a time there was a Dayton family which ran a department store chain called Dayton’s (later Dayton-Hudson and, by the way, the founders of a side business they called Target) and one of the five brothers in charge of the family firm thought a separate chain of bookstores would succeed.  His name was Bruce, but instead of calling the chain B. Dayton, he liked the sound of B. Dalton.  The chain became the largest purveyor of hardcover books in the United States, but the decline of the shopping mall led to it being sold to Barnes & Noble.  (But maybe you’ve heard of another little side business now known as GameStop.)  So yeah, there WAS a B. Dalton, but his name was…you get it.

Ranunculus to You: Solanum to Syringa

*SOLANUM    “Prodigality”

            This word can mean either excessive spending or bountiful generosity.  I suspect this floriographer had the second meaning in mind, as this is the plant family which gives us, among other things, potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplants.  No, I’m not sure why the other floriographers have ignored the tomato and the eggplant.  No taste, perhaps.  I ignore them every chance I get, myself, which is very wrong of me, as they are loaded with nutrients.  Just another of my prodigal ways.

*SOLDIER IN GREEN   “Undying Hope”

            I have a feeling this was meant to be very poignant and symbolic, since a soldier in green can be seen as a soldier who has been buried.  This is only a guess.  My research has so far given me no clue as to what flower Lydia H. Sigourney had in mind.

SOLOMON’S SEAL   “Our Secret Will be Kept”

            Besides a flower, Solomon’s Seal is what keeps a genie (or genii or genius or djinn or so on) in a bottle.  Solomon, it seems, got sick of all these powerful evil spirits flying around, and went into home canning.  To let a genie out of a bottle, you need to break Solomon’s Seal.  So Solomon’s Seal is used here basically to symbolize something you’re keeping bottled up.

SORREL   “Parental Affection”

SORREL, GREAT   “Reparation”

            If you make reparations, you are making amends for something, saying you’re sorry and doing something (giving flowers, say) to show you mean it.

SORREL, WILD   “Wit Ill-Timed”

            You know what they mean.  You tell your joke about the three Moravians who walked into a bar, and you find out the person you told it to is Moravian.

SORREL, WOOD   “Joy”

            All these Sorrels have a minority meaning of “Parental Affection” applied to them, but the meanings listed here are by far in the majority.

            Confusion reigns, however, over WHY so many floriographers assign “Joy” to Wood Sorrel.  Several floriographers attribute this to the fact that Wood Sorrel opens up to see the sun.  Lots of flowers do that, friend.  Claire Powell attributes it to Wood Sorrel’s other major folk name, Alleluia.  Other books, though, claim it is called Alleluia because it opens up to see the sun, which takes us back to where we started.

SOUTHERNWOOD   “Jest, Bantering”

            Another common name for Southernwood is Lad’s Love.  You see the point here: young lads are all such flirts that their love is a joke.

Sowbread:   see CYCLAMEN

SPEARMINT   “Warmth of Sentiment”

            Our modern tastes consider mint to be a cooling herb.  Our ancestors associated all the mints with heat, from the spicy way they hit the tongue.  In fact, our ancestors had a double standard when it came to spices: they liked adding the extra zing to their food, but feared it was habit-forming.  That’s why a lot of children were expected to live on bread and milk until they hit their teens; parents feared they would become addicted to pepper or ginger.  No one wants their kids growing up to be nutmeg fiends.

SPEEDWELL   “Fidelity”

            Some floriographers specify “Female Fidelity”; this comes essentially from the story of Veronica, which is also the name of some varieties of Speedwell.  Veronica was the name of the woman who rushed out and mopped the face of the sweating Christ as he staggered his way to the Crucifixion, despite the danger of showing that much sympathy for a condemned criminal.  She was rewarded with a miraculous image of Christ on the cloth.

            The Speedwell is also known as Germander and, just to be difficult, some people call it Forget-Me-Not.  Corn Speedwell and Wall Speedwell, sometimes listed separately, have the same meaning.

SPEEDWELL, SPIKED   “Semblance”

            A “semblance” is a likeness or resemblance, another reference to the picture of Christ on Veronica’s cloth, with an added reference to the crown of thorns.  Nowadays, the word has a more negative tone than “likeness”, as if someone is faking it.

*SPIDER FLOWER   “Not As Bad As I’ve Seen”

            There’s a compliment for you: “I’ve seen worse.”

SPIDERWORT   “Transient Happiness”

            This flower usually fades the same day it opens, and disappears in a dripping liquid which gives it one of its folk-names: Widow’s Tears.  Therefore, it represents happiness which lasts only a short time.  It is also known as Virginia Spiderwort, or Ephemeris.

*SPINACH   “Without You, I Cannot”

            Sounds like Popeye’s back in town.

SPINDLE TREE   “Your Charms Are Engraven On My Heart”

            You’d think a meaning like that would point to a wood used in engraving.  No: Clair Powell says it is a wood much used by sculptors.  I suspect it’s an attempt to patch up a bit of wordplay that works in French but not in English.  See, Mme. De Latour’s original meaning translates “Your Charms Are Drawn on My Heart” and the word she uses for Spindle Tree is a word used in French for the charcoal used in drawing.

Spruce:   see PINE

*SPIREA   “brevity”

*SPURGE   “just Once”

STAR OF BETHLEHEM   “Purity”

Star Fruit:   see WATER STAR

Starwort:   see ASTER

STARWORT, AMERICAN   “Welcome to a Stranger”

STARWORT, CATESBY’S   “Afterthought”

            Catesby was Mark Catesby, an early naturalist.  This might be the same as a Virginia Aster.

Starwort, Chinese:   see ASTER, CHINA

STEPHANOTIS   “Will You Accompany Me to the East?”

            You’d think there’d be three other flowers, for accompanying someone to the North, South, and West, but I haven’t found those yet.

STOCK   “Lasting Beauty”

            According to the experts, who worry about these things endlessly, when an English poet referred to a gilly-flower, or giliflower, that poet meant Stock.  Unless he meant something else.

STOCK, TEN WEEKS’   “Promptitude”*

            Presumably, this blooms promptly ten weeks after sprouting.

*STOCK, GREY   “My Heart Is All Yours”

*STOCK, RED   “Excellent Beauty”

*STOCK, VIRIGINIA   “True Friendship”

*STOCK, WHITE   “Chaste Love”

STONECROP   “tranquility”

            This is also known as Sedum.  And this is the plant which Fulvio Pellegrino Morato chose to mean “I Want to Go to Bed With You”.  Geoffrey Grigson reports that it is also known by the folk-name Welcome-Home-Husband-Though-Never-So-Drunk.  How those two tidbits of information fit into the grand scheme of things, I can hardly guess.  However, I feel I should note that Stonecrop is also sometimes called Prickmadame.  Geoffrey Grigson is quick to point out that we have filthy minds, and the name has nothing to do with what we were thinking when we saw it.  Prickmadame, he tells us, is merely an Englishification of the French folk-name for Stonecrop, which is Piquemadame.  And Piquemadame is nothing more than a common mispronunciation of the original name, which was Triquemadame.  And trique, he explains, was simply a word meaning an upright stick.

            No. I just report these things.  Don’t blame me.

Stramonium: see THORN APPLE

STRAW, BROKEN   “Rupture of a Contract”*

            In 922, according to Clair Powell, French nobles announced that they were through with King Charles the Simple by throwing broken straws on the floor before him.  For the opposite, see following.

STRAW, WHOLE   “Union”*

            So the code is: Broken Straw-Breaking Up, Whole Straw-Making Up.

STRAWBERRY   “Perfect Excellence”*

            The Victorians loved strawberries as much as or more than they loved pineapples.  Queen Victoria herself was something of a strawberry addict.  Nowadays, of course, we have improved on perfect excellence by dipping our strawberries in chocolate.

            In case you were PLANNING to give your lover strawberries as a demonstration of your feelings and wound up eating them before you could, strawberry leaves carry the same definition.

STRAWBERRY BLOSSOMS   “Foresight”

STRAWBERRY TREE  “Esteem and Love”

Succory:   see CHICORY

SULTAN, SWEET   “Felicity”

SULTAN, SWEET, LILAC  “I Forgive You”

SULTAN, SWEET, WHITE   “Sweetness”

SULTAN, SWEET, YELLOW   “Contempt”

“SUNDEW   “Art, Allurement, Blandishment, Dissimulation, Destruction”

            This is Dorothea Dix, comparing plants that trap flies to painted women who seduce unsuspecting men.  Or maybe it’s painted men luring unsuspecting women.  Anyway, she disapproved of the whole business.

SUNFLOWER   “False Riches:*

SUNFLOWER, DWARF   “Adoration”

SUNFLOWER, TALL   “Haughtiness”

SWALLOW WORT   “Cure for Heartache”

            This seems to be related to asclepius and pleurisy root, though the experts I consulted could not agree on how closely related they are.  All these plants have medicinal uses.  This one is called Swallow Wort either because it blooms when the swallows return to the north, or because swallows were once believed to restore their eyesight by rubbing their eyes on it.  (There are people who, seeing birds among the flowers, automatically believe they are there to rub their eyes.)  Nicolas Culpepper, famous herbalist and curmudgeon, didn’t believe a word of it.  He suggested you catch a swallow, poke its eye out, and see what it does.  I have not done this, nor do I care to hear how it works out if you do.

SWEET FLAG   “Fitness”

            This is a type of iris believed to have medicinal properties.

Sweet Pea;   see PEA, SWEET

SWEET WILLIAM   “Gallantry”

            Mme. De Latour and several other floriographers prefer “Finesse”; either way, we are talking about William, who is sweet because he is an expert flirt and smooth-talking man about town.

            According to Robert McCurdy, the bearded pinks were divided into two classes: broad-leaved ones were to be called Sweet Williams and the narrow-leaved ones were to be known as Sweet Johns.  Somehow, that name never caught on.  William had more finesse.

SYCAMORE   “Curiosity”

            John Ingram says this comes from the tale of Zaccheus climbing a Sycamore to satisfy his curiosity about an itinerant preacher.

SYRINGA   “Memory”

SYRINGA, CAROLINA   “Disappointment”

            Syrinx may have been the only virgin nymph in all of Greek mythology.  Or maybe there were others, who just kept out of the way of Pan.  She wandered onto Pan’s turf, and Pan, not wanting any virgins around his forest, immediately set off in pursuit.  Since Pan had on his utility belt, among other tools, panic, Syrinx took off running, screaming for help.  Her sister nymphs, who knew Pan well and might have been a bit sympathetic, turned her into a plant.  Pan took parts of this plant and made the first Pipes of Pan, some say in memory of the shy beauty and some say out of guilt.  Or maybe he just felt this was a way of getting SOME use out of her.  In any case, it eased his disappointment.

Exactly what plant Syrinx was turned into was a matter of some debate, for the names Syrinx, Syringe, and Syringa have been applied to several.  Elizabeth W. Wirt is philosophical about it all, noting “the Linnaean system of dividing plants into families did not exist when the Gods and Goddesses made love upon the earth”.  Exactly so: who had any time to study plants with so much else going on?

Twin Peeks

     Being funny on a regular basis is no joke.  A man who worked behind the scenes during the Golden Age of radio comedy wrote a book about this, called “Funny Men Don’t Laugh”.  Among the issues he discusses is the fact that he and his boss (whom, for legal reasons, he could not mention by name in the text) were largely unknown.  Writers got no credit whatsoever because everyone wanted to believe those comedians thought of everything they said all by themselves.

     I had a large library of jokebooks, once upon a time, which I read on a regular basis (hence my knowledge and, indeed, frequent use of antique gags.)  One jokebook, dating to 1900 or thereabouts, is graven in my memory because I saw one of the jokes appear in the Monday episode of one of my favorite comic strips.  This mattered little to me: jokes do wander through the world without tags, and are caught and released on a regular basis.

     But on Tuesday, I frowned over the comic strip,.  Surely I remembered that day’s joke from the same book.  Interesting coincidence.

     There’s a saying in the military community: “Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence; three times is enemy action.”  When I remembered Wednesday’s joke, I got the book out shelf and thumbed through it.  Not only were all three jokes there, but they were on the same page.  In fact, Monday’s gag was at the top of the page, Tuesday’s was right under it, and Wednesday’s was next.

     I waited with bated breath for the Thursday paper.  Yes, eggplant éclair, the fourth joke on the page was the fourth gag of the week.  Friday, however, was a gag not in the book, and from there the cartoonist went on to other things.  There’s no reason he should NOT have used jokes from a book that was sixty or seventy years old, but it was an eye opener.  (And it prepared me for a time, years later, when another comic strip I enjoyed swiped an entire two week sequence, word for word and move for move, from a comic strip by someone else.)

     So I suppose I should not have been surprised when I found that postcard humorists were no different.  The postcard at the top of this column is a fairly common joke in folk literature, to say nothing of postcards: the bachelor completely fuddled by “woman’s work”.  I would have thought nothing of it, if I hadn’t run into this postcard.

     Um, that’s the same joke, and an excellent artist’s rendering of the original photograph.  No, my innocent, they were NOT published by the same company.  Somebody at the second company decided the joke would do just as well for them as for someone else, but decided not to run the risk of stealing a copyrighted photograph.

     I like it better if there’s at least a LITTLE adaptation of the original.  This play on words entertains me.

     Even if the main character is swiped from another postcard.

     I do try to stay open-minded about these things, but I admit to a little prejudice.  I assume the tighter, better printed image of these two is the original, though I have no proof of it.  Neither of these cards was actually mailed, but both are from the 1901-1907 period.  I say the second card was by a less interested artist just intent on a quick buck.

     But the next two leave me undecided.  The first card is a more elaborate production, from a company which liked to put that definite block of color behind its protagonists.  The joke is simple and could easily be copied by an artist desperate for that quick sale.

     Hang on, though.  The second is exactly the same picture, NOT redrawn.  The background (and the back of the postcard) is different, and someone has come up with another punchline.  Was this a steal?  Or did the artist simply sell the same picture to two different companies?  Anybody who can come up with two different captions for one drawing—and sell them both—is truly a master of the comic arts.

Getting a Handle On It

     So why is the person in the street who asks you for money a “panhandler”?  We were discussing, not so long ago, the difference between a hobo and a bum.  Of course, a beggar is someone else entirely.  A hobo may have an accustomed route for his travels, but a beggar is often to be found at a usual spot, like the lady we used to encounter three blocks from here, who for three or four years could be heard explaining to passersby that she just needed another dollar to be able to afford a bus ticket to take herself and her nine children back home.  We always wanted to suggest to her that if, in all that time, she hadn’t made one dollar, she might consider some other line of work, but we are not such poor sports.

     Anyway, if one is going to be a panhandler, does one need a pan for this?  Apparently, the pan is considered optional by most dictionaries.  The pan is merely figurative: a person with an arm out looking for a handout looked like a pan, which always had that handle out.  The noun came first, apparently just before the Gold Rush days, and the verb followed a generation later.

     Of course, our postcard cartoonists could not let the opportunities offered by the word to get away unnoticed.

     Although in this case, it is not the asker who is handling the pan,.  (And, in fact, this chap is the passerby instead of the person being passed.)

     The postcard makers were divided into the same two classes we have today.  We have those who admired a panhandler who was as shameless as this chap asking for a minor bit of sewing.  (I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the panhandler I was passing with a nod but no donation who shouted after me “I’ll tell your mother!”)

     And there have always been those who hold the mendicant in contempt, feeling the beggar is an able-bodied person who simply doesn’t want to work.  This panhandler is being extra careful about what sort of charity he is being offered.

     Of course, we all have our ways of dealing with panhandlers.  One of my friends would always refuse politely when asked for money on the street, but would frequently mutter “Why doesn’t he get a job?” as he moved on.  (Yes, I am the one who would point out “He does have a job.  That’s it.”)  Those who are interested in telling us what to say carry this to another level, reminding us that neither “beggar” no “panhandler” are complimentary terms, and should not be used, as these people have their own troubles and should not be loaded down with the weight of unpleasant labels.  I don’t know how they would have felt about my use of “mendicant”, which is more properly applied to those members of mendicant religious orders.  I could look it up, I suppose, but there’s no money in that.  Anyhow, our postcard publishers didn’t mind kindness to a panhandler, especially if a pun was made available thereby.

     But they also appreciated those who put the beggar in his place at once.  It does take all kinds.

Ranunculus to You: Rosebud to Snowdrop

ROSEBUD   “Young Girl”

            This symbolism ought to be obvious.  If you want complication, there is a system of messages which can be sent using rosebuds, agreed upon by just about everybody who goes in for such things.  If you present your lover with a rosebud with a stem that has all its leaves and thorns intact, you are saying “I Fear But I Hope.”*  That is, you’re afraid he/she doesn’t love you, but you haven’t given up yet.  He/she takes the rosebud from you and then hands it back.  And it is here that things get complicated.

            If you get the rosebud back upside-down, you are being told, “You Must Neither Fear Nor Hope”, which is presumably the equivalent of “I’ll always be a friend.”

            If it comes upside-up, with all the leaves torn off, you are being told “There Is Everything to Fear”.*  (Pull up yer socks, honey; yer runnin’ dead last in the race for my heart.)

            If you get it back with the thorns plucked off, the message is “There Is Everything to Hope”*.  (Ain’t sayin’ out loud, kid, but you made the finals.)

            If the leaves AND thorns are picked off, you are being told “There Is Nothing to Fear or Hope”.  (I’m really more into video games.)

            If your lover instead rips all the petals off and hands you what’s left, the message is “I Hate You.”  But you may have deduced that while they were hurling the petals down and stomping on them.

ROSEBUD, MOSS   “Confession of Love”

ROSEBUD, RED   “Pure and Lovely”

ROSEBUD, RED, SEVERAL   “Seek an Opportune Moment”

            Notice how long I waited before I mentioned Citizen Kane?

ROSEBUD, WHITE   “A Heart Ignorant of Love”*

            Catherine Waterman reports that before love came into the world, all roses were white.  I find this legend sadly lacking in detail.  Whose love?  What kind of love?  Were the roses blushing when it happened, or what?  A few floriographers make it plain that their meaning refers to someone who is too young for grand passion, rather than someone who lacks a notion of any kind of love.

*ROSEBUD, YELLOW   “Jealous of an Old Admirer”

*ROSE BUSH, LEAF   “Dream Elsewhere”

ROSEMARY   “remembrance”

            This meaning has been traced to at least the fifteenth century.  Some floriographers attribute it to a tea made of rosemary, which was intended to revive the memory.  Others trace it to a habit of the ancients (they do not specify which ancients) of carrying it to wedding and funerals, both of these being occasions to be remembered aside from storing memories of the people involved.  Lucy Hooper tells the story of the Countess Eleanora of Denmark, who saw her lover’s body arrayed for burial, strewn with rosemary.  By all accounts, Lady Eleanora was not the frail, fainting type, but forever after could not smell rosemary without going into convulsions.

            A popular minority meaning, almost as popular as the other, is “Your presence revives Me”.  Mme. De Latour preferred it, but in English-speaking countries she was overruled by Shakespeare.  In Hamlet, Ophelia goes into one of the most famous bits of flower language in literature, including the line “There’s Rosemary; That’s for Remembrance”.  It may be worth noting that Ophelia only goes in for flower language after she’s slipped over the railings into madness.

Anyway, be sure to check out the whole speech for information on what flower language was like in Will’s day.  I’d’ve included more of it in this book, but the experts are still wrangling over just what flowers he was talking about.

Rose of Sharon:   see ALTHEA

Rowan:   see ASH, MOUNTAIN

RUDBECKIA   “Justice”

RUE   “Disdain”

            The flower is bitter, and anyone who has sampled it is expected to disdain a second taste.  According to people who study such things, medieval flower symbolism used Thyme as a symbol of virginity, and Rue for its loss.  As the neighbors looked on in disdain, you rued the day, I expect.

RUE, GOAT’S   “Reason”*

            Claire Powell tells us this is another herb that was believed to calm madness.

RUE, WILD   “Morals”*

RUSH   “Docility”

            These are pliable plants which were strewn all over the floor during the Middle Ages, and walked upon in lieu of a carpet.  What with our ancestors at dinner tossing food to the dogs—dogs which were not housebroken, in those days—you can see why they’d prefer something disposable as floor covering, in contrast to, say, a shag wall-to-wall carpet.  Rushes were also cheap and of little account, as in the old phrase “I don’t give a rush”.

                                                                        S

SAFFRON   “Beware of Excess”

            Claire Powell says this comes from its use as an additive to alcoholic beverages.  I think the explanation is easier than that: Saffron has always been one of the most expensive plant products in the western world.  See, it’s gathered from crocuses about a beelionth of an ounce at a time.  A workable amount of it could easily cost more than the average working man’s salary, so it was genuinely an excessive luxury.

            I’ve seen some sex manuals which recommend a saffron massage for your lover.  I think that’s excessive.  I’d settle for the money.

SAFFRON, MEADOW   “My Best Days Are Past”

            Or, as Mme. De Latour put it, “My Beautiful Days Are Past”.  This is a crocus which blooms in the autumn, when the best days of summer are past.  (Some experts claim that the Rose of Sharon mentioned in the Bible is not Rose of Sharon as we know it, but actually Meadow Saffron.  This is to keep life from becoming too easy.)

            Meadow Saffron is bare of foliage, suggesting the defenselessness of old age.  It has also suggested other things.  Geoffrey Grigson, lists some of its folk names as Naked Virgins, Naked Ladies, Naked Boys, Bare Bottom, Naked Nannies, and, from the Assyrian, Come Let Us Copulate.  I always knew those Assyrians to be a rowdy bunch.  He hurries on from there, though, to point out that Meadow Saffron has a host of medicinal and culinary uses, concluding on the felicitous note “The Naked Lady…is generous in all her parts.”

            Her best days may be past, but she’s still in there pitching.

SAGE   “Esteem”*

            There was a saying about this plant, asking “Why should a man die who has sage in his garden?”  Its uses in cooking and medicine were so numerous as to make it a regular shopping mall in the back yard.

            On seed catalogs, and some flower language books, it is listed as Salvia.  (Red Hot Sally is one variety.)  A few floriographers separated Salvias by color, assigning meanings to each one, but there never does seem to have been much agreement about it, so it’s safer to go with the general meaning approved by Mme. De Latour.

SAINFOIN   “Agitation”*

            Another plant that shakes a lot.

SAINT JOHN’S WORT   “Superstition”

            Some experts claim there are more superstitions about this plant than any other, while others claim that honor for verbena.  The floriographers know all about it, and go on at length about the Rosicrucians and white magic and so on.

            To me, one of the most interesting things about this plant is that almost none of the floriographers get it alphabetized correctly.  I counted three.  Spelling it “St. John’s Wort”, they stick it down among the plants starting with ST, pushing it next to the Starwort.  And they were doing this in the days BEFORE you could just blame it on the computer.

Salsify:   see OSYTER PLANT

SARDONIA   “Irony”

            A sardonic smile is humorless: bitter, ironic.  Some have suggested the very word comes from someone who tasted the plant and found it so bitter they made a face.

Satin Flower:   see HONESTY

*SAVIN   “You Could Die Laughing”

*SAVORY   “Nothing is Too Good”

SAXIFRAGE, MOSSY   “Affection

SCABIOUS   “unfortunate Attachment”

SCABIOUS, INDIAN or SWEET   “Widowhood”

            Dorothea Dix said that because Scabious is dark blue, it became associated with mourning.  In fact, both this plant and the one above are also known as Mourning Bride or Mourning Widow.  So the floriographers generally assign them meanings associated with sorrow and misfortune, leaning especially to “Unfortunate Love” or “Unfortunate Attachment”.  They imply that any love is unfortunate because it must one day end.  As Ernest Hemingway, just to drop in a name you never expected to find in a flower language book, points out, all love ends unhappily: either the lovers stop loving each other or they die.  No other ending, as he saw

it, was possible.  The whole business is covered in a song called “When You Come to the End of a Lollipop.”

*SCABIOUS, SHERPHERD’S   “You Have Brought It To Me”

Scarlet Dragon:   see SAGE

            This is the Red Salvia.

SCHINUS   “Religious Enthusiasm”

            The Lehners tell me this was sacred to the Incas, hence the meaning.  This would make it the only time I’ve noticed the floriographers taking an interest in the Incas, particularly.

*SCHIZANTHUS  “Word for the Deed”

            This means “Well, you said you’d do it, so we’ll all act as if you did do it, because we know you’d have done it if you had the chance to do it” or “”You said you were going to do it, so though there’s no proof that you’re the one who did do it, I’ll make as if you did done do it.”  Or something.

*SCILLA SINIRICA   “Pleasure Without Alloy”

            This means there is nothing else mixed in with the pleasure; the pleasure is pure pleasure, not a combination of pleasure and thoughts of “I am sure going to hate myself tomorrow.”

*SCILLA, WHITE   “Sweet Innocence”

Scorpion Grass:   see FORGET-ME-NOT

SCRATCHWEED   “Roughness”*

            Mme. De Latour didn’t always go for a meaning hidden in obscure, ancient knowledge.  She could pick up on the obvious.

SEDGE, SWEET   “Resignation”

            This is the old meaning of the word, about how you’re prepared to put up with something.  So instead of “I quit”, this flower means “I accept my fate”.

*SENNA, AMERICAN   “Assiduous”

Senna, Bladder:   see BLADDER SENNA

Sensitive Plant:   see MIMOSA

SENVY   “Indifference”

SEERPENTINE   “Horror”

SERVICE TREE   “Prudence”
            This tree sets its fruit late in the season, long after the possibility of frost, and is generally dependable.  Thus it provides another contrast to the imprudent Almond.

SHAMROCK   “Lightheartedness”

            Only two floriographers mention Ireland, and they are two of the more recent ones.  On the other hand, a couple of floriographers make this meaning “Lightheadedness” instead.

SHEPHERD’S PURSE   “I Offer You My All”

            To give one’s all to a project is the same as that “giving 110%” people talk about, dedicating oneself to it body and soul.  You may consider this an offer of one’s worldly possessions, from the symbolism of a purse as a holder of money, OR the offer of one’s virginity, tasking the purse as physical symbolism.  In literature, a lady who threw away her reputation for passion had “given her all”.  James Branch Cabell warned young men against women who gave you their all even when you didn’t particularly want their all..  Forever after, he warned, they would remind you of that all they gave you.

Shooting Star:   see COWSLIP, AMERICAN

*SIDESADDLE FLOWER   “Will You Pledge Me?”

            I’m not at all sure of this, whether it comes from the days of chivalry, with ladies riding sidesaddle and their boyfriends drinking to their honor (pledging them) or whether the young lady is asking for a promise in exchange for her all.  Asa Gray, early scientist still remembered for the book Gray’s Anatomy, said in one of his botanical writings that this flower  had “a most unmeaning name.”

SIPHOCAMPYLOS   “Resolved To Be Noticed”

            This is Skunk Cabbage, a plant you can hardly fail to notice.

Silverweed:   see POTENTILLA

*SMOKE TREE   “Still Doubtful; Wait”

*SNAIL PLANT   “Sluggishness and Stupidity”

Snakesfoot:   see SERPENTARIA

SNAKE’S TONGUE   “Slander”

            The snake is, of course, all wickedness, and its tongue is naturally used for spreading nasty gossip.  See also ADDER’S TONGUE

SNAP DRAGON   “Presumption”

SNOWBALL  “Thoughts of Heaven”

*SNOWBERRY   “Thankful”

SNOWDROP   “Consolation”*

            Another common meaning is “Hope”, from the way this blooms in cold weather.  Also known as Fair Maids of February, it supposedly blooms on Groundhog’s Day, just to let everybody know Spring really is on the way, comforting if you happen to have a snow shovel in your hand at the time.  Katherine M. Beals, another floriographer who knew lots of stuff, says that when Eve stepped out of the nice, warm garden of Eden into the frigid, rocky world, this flower popped up to console her.  This may have been an early bloomer; another legend has it that Adam and Eve were evicted from the garden on December 24.