Once upon a time, there was a whole world of migrant vagrants. The lore of this world can be found in many nations, and members of the group served as heroes, villains, or comic relief in many a story. Some were men down on their luck, while others were princes in disguise. But by and large, it was a life’s occupation. The class started to drop out of pop culture after World War II. Diesel trains were harder to hop, requiring a state ID to hold any kind of job made the migrant’s lot harder, and the Sixties in particular dragged in all manner of new issues as dropping out of society took on a political charge.
The inhabitants of this world went by many names. Someone on Wikipedia has gone to the trouble of defining the differences between hoboes, bums, and tramps. A hobo, says this authority, travels and works, a tramp travels but avoids work wherever possible, while a bum neither travels nor works. Some would disagree, but you can go into the subject more deeply on other websites: hobo culture particularly has attracted attention from scholars and collectors for eons.
The characters seen in most comic books, cartoons, and movies, therefore, would seem to be tramps. They spend a lot of time arranging for transportation.
Some of them in more comfort than others.
But by and large, they are always seen traveling by rail. (That bundle carried on a stick over the shoulder is known as a bindle, by the way. It was usually made up of spare clothes and bedding. Sometimes the stick is called a bindle stick, while others prefer to use this term for the entire stick and bindle set. I have been unable to find out if a bindle is still a bindle if there is no stick. A bindlestiff is a hobo or tramp who carries such a device. Try working your new vocabulary into conversation this week.)
Of course, the automobile offered new manners of traveling from town to town. These frequently turned out to be very similar to train travel.
Higher even on the priority list than transportation, though, was arranging one’s daily menu. Could these lads have made it in a world of aluminum and even plastic cans?
Fresher food was preferable, but it was seasonal. The symbiotic relationship of tramps and cooks who left pies on the windowsill to cool was another one of those ecological features we have destroyed in modern times.
In the right climates, though, a quick worker could harvest lunch at most any time of year.
Though the ambience of outdoor cafés could vary widely.
Once one had the problems of travel and sustenance figured out, though, a tramp was as free as air, without having to give up his leisure time to work or family. So there was that.
This was a wreath awarded at games in ancient days, generally for great strength. Gladiators ate it to give them strength and courage in the ring. And the Battle of Marathon was supposed to have been fought in a field of fennel. But its meaning could just as well have come from its strong flavor, which would also explain why the ancients associated it with strength.
*FENNEL, DOG “You Are Mistaken”
FERN “Sincerity”*
Okay, pay attention: the equation is complex. Ferns make a nice soft seat for folks who are out on a picnic. Ashes of ferns were once added to the mixture to make the exquisite glass for wineglasses. Lovers go on a picnic and drink wine: wine plus love, said the floriographers, equaled sincerity. This may have gone over with readers in the 1830s but it wouldn’t have passed for two minutes where I went to college.
Claire Powell suggests adding a fern to other flowers in flower language to emphasize the other flower’s meaning. Your sentiment is sincere, you see.
*FERN, BOSTON “May I Call?”
*FERN, FINGER “Alleviation”
FERN, FLOWERING “Reverie”
I am told this is the same as Osmunda, which is usually said to mean “Dreams”, which comes to the same thing. Osmunda was sacred to Thor or to Thor’s wife (the experts don’t seem very sure about this) who was believed to send prophetic dreams.
FERN, MAIDENHAIR “Discretion”*
This is also called just Maidenhair, and is related to another fern known as Venus’s Hair. It is a delicate little fern that got its name and meaning because, well, because it reminded somebody of somebody else’s pubic hair, Our ancestors had the same interests we have, you know. It’s how they got to be ancestors. One expects maidens to be discreet, y’see.
Robert Tyas, however, insists it all comes from ferns being so secretive about the way they reproduce. I consider this a distinction without a difference.
*FERN, ROYAL “Reverie”
*FERN, SMALL “You Are Too Importunate”
*FEVER ROOT “Delay”
FIG “Argument”
Some have suggested that people who are arguing may make the obscene gesture known as “the fig”. Henry Phillips, however, connects it with a speech of Cicero, wherein the Roman Senate was persuaded to wage war on Carthage after Cicero held up a ripe fig. Cicero said the fig was plucked outside the walls of Carthage and had reached Rome still fresh. Do we, Citizens, want a mortal enemy that close to us? The fig was the chief argument for getting the war started.
Phillips originated this flower language definition, so I guess he must be accepted. Still and all, I prefer the experts who take the meaning right back to Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Twins sons of a princess and the God of War, Ares, they were tossed into the river by their grandfather, who wasn’t buying the princess’s story. (Ares was portrayed in Greek myth as a crude, snarling bully with no charm or conversation, but I note he is connected with a lot fewer rapes than Apollo, the smooth, civilized god. We can worry about this another time.) The Tiber was flooded, though, so the basket they were in floated far enough for the twins to crawl ashore and take shelter under a fig tree associated with Rumina, the Goddess of Breast-Feeding. (No, I am not making this up. There was a God of Rust and Mildew, too.) A mama wolf wandered by, and influenced by the tree or inherent maternal instinct (something believed in at the time) she suckled the boys until they were old enough to crawl off and seek human companionship.
Years later, after they’d become successful and were setting up their new city, they got into an argument about the town layout and Romulus killed his brother under that very same fig tree. He went on to build the city by himself, and that, children, is why the city was named Rome instead of Reme.
Ruminate on that.
FIG TREE “Prolific”
Because it is.
*FIGS, DRIED “Sterility, Emaciation”
Filbert: see HAZEL
FIR “Elevation”
This is also called Scotch Fir and Silver Fir. Evergreen terminology gets a little tangled in the early books: there are Spruce Pines and Spruce Fir Pines, and so on. I do not intend to try and sort it out. My grandfather, who was something of a tree man, did try to teach me these things in my youth, but I little recked that one day I would be writing a flower language book and frittered my time away throwing pine cones at my brother. Let this be a lesson to all of us to learn as much as we can before we get old and lazy.
Anyhow, the floriographers didn’t do any better. One floriographers listed “Time’ as a meaning for Fir, and “Elevation” as a meaning for Fir Tree. It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.
*FLAME FLOWER “Anger”
This is also known as Red Hot Poker and Texas Pride.
FLAX “I Feel Your Kindness”*
Flax has so many uses—linseed oil, linen, and like that—that the floriographers made it symbolic of a gracious thank you note: you imply to the recipient that they have been as useful as flax.
*FLAX WITH HONEYUCKLE “Will You be a Domestic Wife?”
*FLAX WITH THYME “You Are a Good Little Housewife”
You try these last two meanings in your bouquet and let me know where you wind up. I may send flowers.
FLAX, DRIED “Utility”
FLEUR-DE-LIS “Flame”
The fleur-de-lis is an iris, and all irises seem to make people think of flames. Part of the reason is that some folks derive the name from fleur-de-luce, or flower of light. Others derive it from lis, French for Lily, while Robert M. McCurdy speaks of a Celtic word li, meaning white.
But most of the experts say the name was originally Fleur-de-Louis, or flower of Louis, who made it the symbol of the French royal family. Some books credit one Louis and some another, while others take it all the way back to Clovis I (who lived before the name Louis was invented.) Before this momentous decision, the symbol of French royalty was a flag with three toads on it. Anti-toad historians say this is not so: it was three fleurs-de-lis all along, but the artists were so bad that everybody thought the flowers were toads. People who can mistake a flower for a toad are born, not made.
Not even the French floriographers I’ve seen give this flower the meaning “France”. Probably a political thing.
*FLORA’S BELL “You Are Without Any pretension”
Flora’s Paintbrush: see CACALIA
Flower of an Hour: see HIBISCUS
FLOWERS, GATHERED “We Will Die Together”*
Claire Powell WILL insist that Victorians thought the scent of decaying flowers was poisonous, and so never had cut flowers in their homes, lest they all die together. I, for one, can’t believe the vast run of Victorians was that dumb. A few…but you’ll find those in every era.
*FLOWERS, WITHERED “Rejected Love”
Flytrap: see VENUS’S VLYTRAP
FORGET-ME-NOT “Forget Me Not”
Yeah, a lot of the floriographers went for the obvious, though plenty preferred an alternate meaning, “True Love”, which may come to the same thing. Mme. De Latour, if you’re interested, had it mean “Remember Me”. Don’t make that face; it’ll stick.
Claire Powell attributes to Luxemburg the lover who went too far onto the river bank to pick flowers for his true love and, before he drowned, called out “Forget me not!” And so the flower was named. There is another legend, claiming that when God was naming the flowers He almost overlooked one little blossom, and when it piped up, He decided to call it…well, you can guess. If you can’t see God overlooking a blossom, there is still another legend that He named all the flowers, but one was so little it couldn’t remember its own name, so He picked out this name instead.
Anyway, none of these stories are particularly specific about which flower was involved. The name was used for various blossoms, and finally settled on one hitherto known primarily as the Mouse-Eared Scorpion Grass. Now, THAT is eminently forgettable.
FOXGLOVE “Insincerity”
As anyone who reads mysteries can tell you, Foxglove is the plant from which we derive digitalis, a drug which can, used improperly, bring on a heart attack. The floriographers, as noted previously, thought this sort of thing was the height of insincerity in a flower. Well, the Foxglove was just doing what came naturally.
FOXTAIL GRASS “Sporting”
This naturally comes from the land of fox hunting.
FRANCISCEA LATIFOLIA “Beware of False friends”
FRANKINCENSE “The Incense of a faithful heart”
Frank Incense, I suppose. This little jest comes from either Lucy Hooper or Frances S. Osgood, unless, as noted, they each swiped it from some other book.
FRAXINELLA “Fire”
Also known as Burning Bush or Gas Plant, this item gives off a flammable gas, which they say can be burned without damage to the plant. What will they think of next? A botanist informed me that it resembles the leaves of the Ash, which seems to me to be carrying the joke a little far.
B.J. Healey notes that this is a kind of Dictamnus, or Dittany, but not the Dittany listed in this book, which can be any one of three other plants. Love this work: how can I make a mistake when everybody is screwy?
FRITILLARY, CHEQUERED “Persecution”
That’s an old spelling of “Checkered”, if you didn’t figure it out. The floriographers tell a tale of a slandered queen persecuted out of her palace by a jealous husband, dying in a field. Thus, they say, a Crown Imperial became a Chequered Fritillary. Some people are too clever for their own good. Others attest that the meaning comes about because the plant was brought to England by Huguenots, persecuted French Protestants.
FUCHSIA “taste”
FUMITORY, COMMON “Spleen”
The flavor of this plant is called very bitter, very disagreeable. Once upon a time, a disagreeable person who was having a temper tantrum was said to be “venting his spleen”, and “spleen” became a slang expression for bad temper. This is what is meant in this definition.
I try not to dwell too fiercely on the fashions of previous generations. I recall too well the exchange between a teacher in my high school who was pointing out to a classmate of mine who was snickering at the crewcuts shown in an old yearbook that within twenty years, what the kids were wearing would look just as bizarre and bygone.
“Oh, I don’t think people will laugh so much at long hair,” she assured him.
“That’s what we thought about short hair,” he replied.
Having since passed through eras of wearing underwear as outerwear, men wearing their belts just slightly above their knees, and rampant legwarmers, I think I have achieved a certain perspective. (It helps that, in spite of all efforts, I never did dress like anyone else. I think my maroon bell bottoms are still in storage, waiting for a time when they MIGHT pass for a fashionable garment.)
But I admit I am still puzzled by what our female ancestors wore on their heads. It isn’t that I laugh or snort in derision. It’s more a matter of getting a fix on the logistics of the whole thing. Take the fashionable lady at the top of this column. How did she navigate the sidewalks of the city? And if she raised her head enough to see out from under that brim, the first high wind would surely take her hat away.
Yes, I understand the basic principle of the hat pin, which fixed the hat to the hair (and also served as a weapon in case of emergency.)
But this was already the age of skyscrapers, which altered the wind currents and amplified them. (I recently saw a film clip from 1900 or thereabouts of people walking along the notoriously windy 23rd Street in New York. The only person who does NOT have one hand on a hat while walking gets his blown away.) By the way,. I don’t think we covered the old joke in our columns on those. You know the one: the lady is hanging onto her hat with both hands as she walks along, even though the wind is blowing her skirts high enough to attract bystanders checking out her knees and anything else the breeze would reveal. When warned about this, she snapped “What they’re looking at is twenty years old, and this hat is brand new!” Where were we?
Not all huge hats relied on broad wind-catching brims, of course. It would be wrong to think that a single style ever completely took over the market.
The great thing about the next hat is that it isn’t even the focus of the joke. It’s just the sort of hat which might be worn by someone who would also wear the new and shocking skirts in fashion.
And just in case you think these are just the exaggerations of cartoonists, who might draw anything, there are the rppcs, the real photo postcards of ladies showing off their new hats. This young lady apparently has a box of chocolates balanced on her head.
The lady on the right here has clearly won the contest.
Another thing puzzling me about these hats is what they did to the whole picture. Is this woman really this teeny, or is her hat simply that big?
The sad thing, of course, is that even the children had to get involved. Little girls had to start wearing strange overwhelming hats from the outset, so they could build up their hat muscles.
Of course, we are dealing simply with women’s hats here. Men’s hats were always an example of simple utility, and were never mocked.
Although we see discussions (sometimes in this very space) of the music of bygone days, these tend to focus on what I would call “officially available music”. These are performances on the Broadway stage, or concerts in big cities by big name musicians, or the debuts of operas or symphonies in front of massive groups, with input from composer and lyricist. You can check the Interwebs and find every known recording of, say, “Because”, the hit wedding song for three generations.
But the Interwebs cannot tell us how many times the same song was delivered by music students in little music studios or precocious seven year-old musicians in the parlor when long-suffering Uncle Dudley was visiting. A few anecdotal reports exist on which songs people were sickest of hearing from sidewalk hurdy-gurdy platers or how many potentially great songs disappeared from pop culture because they were printed in Sunday newspaper supplements and then played to death by so-so pianists who never performed for more than six other listeners (three of whom had their hands over their ears.)
Postcard artists at least alert us to the possibilities. They lived at the same time when improvident fiddlers could be found on street corners. SOME of these violinists, by the law of averages, must have been pretty good, but you wouldn’t know it from the postcards.
Unless you live in an area where street musicians are encouraged (my city likes to sequester them to the subway stations), what joys can you get to take the place of such random, passing lullabies?
Okay, maybe that guy who plays his car sound system on high and keeps the windows rolled down, even in winter. But he keeps moving, so you can’t respond in the manner street musicians had to prepare for.
And this sort of unexpected concert is still available to those who live in apartment buildings. But in both these cases, you’re likely to hear recordings of good musicians, just a touch too loud.
The postcard cartoonists certainly knew about too loud. This was always a feature when they showed us their favorite target, the talentless or semi-talented vocalist, who is always shown with mouth stretched to its fullest, screeching out a gentle love song.
This ability to belt out a musical number without the slightest self-consciousness is essential to the joke. I wonder if this pianist is being driven to distraction, or is merely as determined to demonstrate his abilities as the soprano he is accompanying. (I see this couple as an animated cartoon, each trying to emote more furiously than the other, getting louder and louder as they race to the end of the song.)
Continue to note the singer’s mouth, though. This singer seems to have been a teen idol of his day, as the audience is tossing bouquets on the stage. (If you are unfamiliar with this custom, it was a mark of high praise. And yes, many singers paid people in the audience to go out and buy flowers to toss at them.)
Two mouths were, of course, even better than one.
And four mouths were excellent, if not from a musical sense, then at least from a cartoon angle.
And in case you thought only the cartoon mouth was liable to this treatment, here is some ancestor of Jerry Lewis about to be fluidly applauded for his private concert. Does THIS make you feel better about the guy with the car windows rolled down?
The pioneer floriographers could not agree on whether the Daffodil meant Chivalry, Uncertainty, or Mistaken Hope. In 1867, the Lover of Flowers declared it stood for Regard, and that meaning has prevailed ever since.
DAHLIA “Instability”
Tradition tells us the Dahlia came from mainland Europe to England twice. The first plants were brought over just as the French Revolution was building up. These all died, and a second set was imported about the time Napoleon named himself Emperor. The dahlia thus symbolized to the British the unsettled political atmosphere of its time.
In this country, its reputation is tied up with the death of Elizabeth Short in 1947. This was one of those nasty unsolved crimes, in which each part of the body seemed to have been killed separately. It became especially famous, according to one of the investigators, mainly because Elizabeth had taken to dressing all in black and calling herself the Black Dahlia. Her
death, according to him, would have been just another one of those things had she not associated herself with “an exotic and mysterious flower”.
DAISY “Innocence”*
Almost all floriographers mention the daisy. Of the ones who do, some 79% agree on “innocence” or some variation of that as the meaning, making it one of the most agreed-upon flower language meanings. What the floriographers cannot agree upon is which flowers are daisies and which are not. See, some daisies are really asters, while others are chrysanthemums.
By the way, Laura C. Martin notes that most daisies have an odd number of petals. So if you are working on “He loves me, he loves me not”, and use a daisy, you almost always end up with “He loves me.”
*DAISY, AFRICAN “Fearless”
DAISY, DOUBLE “Participation”
On a bicycle built for two, I suppose.
“DAISY, EASTER “Candour and Innocence”
DAISY, GARDEN “I Share Your Sentiments”
Claire Powell traces this and the meaning for the Wild Daisy to the days of jousting and tournaments, where a fair lady would give one of these tokens to a knight, accepting or postponing his offer of tribute.
*DAISY, GREY “Content Yourself”
I have never, myself, seen a grey daisy, so I suppose I have mistranslated Mr. Morato again.
*DAISY, MEADOW “You May Hope”
Daisy, Michaelmas: see ASTER
*DAISY, MOUNTAIN “Meek Loveliness”
As long as we have so many other nineteenth century female poets on hand, let us consider the case of Emily Dickinson. Emily’s poetry went largely unpublished in her lifetime because it was too much unlike that of real poets, say, Lydia H. Sigourney. But there is plant life sprouting throughout her poetry, especially daisies, roses, daffodils, and clover. Daisies are her favorites for homely, comfortable scenes. Her flowers have almost no resemblance to those found in flower language; the only two symbolisms they have in common were probably taken from the same places the floriographers found them, rosemary for remembrance and asphodel for the abode of the dead. Her mind didn’t run much to dictionaries: too orderly. She did use her flowers as measuring sticks, though: a person who had died has gone “beyond the rose”, a grave is “just a daisy deep”.
Nowadays, Emily’s poetry is seen all over the place while hardly anyone of sense bothers with Lydia H. Sigourney. It’s as a friend of mind told me, “You’ll get what’s coming to you if you live long enough, even if it comes after you’re dead.” She may be the same person who advised me, “You have to take what you can get, but you can’t always get it.” Sometimes I wonder if these statements are profound, and sometimes I just wonder.
DAISY, OX-EYE “A Token”
DAISY, RED “Beauty Unknown to the Possessor”
What you are telling the person who gets this flower is “You’re prettier than you think.”
DAISY, VARIEGATED “Beauty”
DAISY, WHITE “Innocence”
“Youth without virtue is like spring on a windblasted peak; it lacks the very thing that makes spring joyful.” P. Coelestin Muff, “The Maiden’s Wreath”, in The Young Catholic Girl’s Guide, 1906. Mr. Muff made up his flower language to fit his homilies.
DAISY, WILD “I Will Think of It”
DANDELION “Oracle”*
There are whole heapy handfuls of fortune-telling games to play with dandelions, possibly because they’re often the easiest flower to come by. We kids always used them when they were still yellow, to check whether people liked butter. You rubbed the bloom under someone’s chin, and if the chin turned yellow, the person liked butter. Precisely why it was so important to discover a person’s dairy preferences I am not certain, but it passed the time, particularly if you got a kid who objected to having plants rubbed under his chin. The British appear to have used buttercups for the same purpose.
Most other methods involve a dandelion gone to seed, covered with those little white feathers. Some say that if you attach a message to each feather, and blow them in the direction of your lover, the messages will be received. Blow again, and if a single feather remains attached to the blossom, your lover has not forgotten you.
Others say you blow the feathers off and those which are left on the flower will tell you what time it is. Sure they will. Some ladies blow the feathers away and count what’s left, as that will predict how many children they will have. Another tradition says if you make a wish and blow, and all the feathers blow away, you will get our wish. I can see connecting those last two, but I suppose it’s pretty low even to suggest it.
*DANDELION SEEDHEAD “Depart”
Daphne: see LAUREL
Daphne Mezereon: see MEZEREON
DAPHNE ODORA “Painting the Lily”
DARNEL “Vice”*
Rye Grass and Ray Grass are forms of Darnel; in either form it is a weed which will grow quickly and destroy good wheat, as vices can overwhelm virtues.
You see that this is one of Mme. de Latour’s original meanings, and it remained part of floriography not only in English-speaking countries but in France as well. It appears in L’Esprit des Fleurs, by Emmeline Raymond. Mme. Raymond tried, in 1884, to revive flower language with this book. It’s a beautiful volume so long as you don’t try to READ it: all the beautiful pictures, with their brown paper protectors, keep getting in the way. Anyway, Emmeline’s feeling was that the modern generation was rejecting poetic sentimentality and flower language because floriography had never had much substance, much depth. She tried to remedy this by providing as logical base for floriography: a story in which the flowers get together and talk over what it’s like to be flowers, and how their flower language meanings suit them. This may have solved the problem so far as Mme. Raymond was concerned. You wouldn’t get far with it today.
Datura: see ANGEL’S TRUMPET
Daylily: see LILY, DAY
Delphinium: see LARKSPUR
*DEUTZIA “Gentleness, Inspiration”
DEW PLANT “Serenade”
*DIDISCUS “Modesty”
*DILL “Protection”
DIOSMA “Uselessness”
DIPLADENIA CRASSINODA “You Are Too Bold”
This is a vine, a creeper and climber. The floriographers liked clinging plants—generally having them represent endless love or friendship—but climbers made them nervous.
DIPTERACANTHUS SPECTABILIS “Fortitude”
DITTANY “Birth”*
Also called Dittany of Crete, this plant, Richard Folkard Jr. tells us, was sacred to Lucina, goddess of Childbirth.
DITTANY, WHITE “Passion”
Which might bring us back to Dittany. This is known sometimes as White Dittany of Crete.
DOCK “Patience”*
In fact, some gardeners know this as Patience Dock. I am told the seeds of Dock can stay viable for up to sixty years. That is patient.
*DOCK, YELLOW “Brief Expedition”
DODDER “Meanness”
A parasitic plant, dodder can devastate a field of wheat or flax.
DOGWOOD “Durability”
Geoffrey Grigson calls this a very solid and versatile wood, ideal for use since ancient times in tools, arrows, and toothpicks. Toothpicks?
DOGWOOD, FLOWERING “Am I Perfectly Indifferent to You?”
Geoffrey Grigson goes on to say, however, that dogwood berries are perfectly useless.
DRAGON PLANT “Snare”
DRAGON WORT “Horror”
Also known as Snakesfoot, for reasons which doubtless seemed good at the time. I might be struck with horror myself at finding a snake with feet.
E
EBONY “Blackness”
Whatever else could it mean?
*ECHINACEA AUGUSTIFOLIA “Strength”
ECHITES ATROPURPUREA “Be Warned in Time”
This is a poisonous twining shrub. But it doesn’t twine THAT fast. Plenty of time to get out of the way.
My, floriographers just go all out for Edelweiss! I could say something sarcastic here,
but what’s the use. Let’s all sing together: “edelweiss, edelweiss….”
Eglantine: see ROSE, SWEETBRIER
ELDER “Zealousness”
*ELDERBERRY “Charm Envelopes and Conquers By an Inexhaustible Sweetness”
I do not believe we have discussed Rob Pulleyn yet. He’s the author of a number of late twentieth century books on dried flowers, and wreaths made of dried flowers. In Everlasting Floral Gifts, he has a flower language guide apparently compiled by his co-author, Claudette Mantor. She cites Margaret Pickston’s Language of the Flowers, a book we’ll chat about later on, and a flower language book published in India. I have not been able to track this down yet, but I expect this is where they found all the lengthy aphorisms that fill up their flower language.
A lot of flower arrangers won’t touch flower language: it can get in the way of choosing the color and shape of an arrangement, Others don’t mind. James J. Moretz, proprietor of the only flower language library I ever found (in Chicago), had it in the same establishment where he gave flower arrangement lessons. (His collection eventually joined the massive floriography collection at the Chicago Botanic Garden.)
*ELEPHANT’S EAR “Hear All You Can”
I have to admit this is more obvious than that meaning for Elderberry. It might be said to swing too much the other way, in fact.
ELM “Dignity”
ELM, AMERICAN “Patriotism”
I can find no explanation of how Lucy Hooper picked out this meaning. Plantlorist Charles M. Skinner says America “claims” this tree, but doesn’t explain himself.
ENDIVE “Frugality”
Just mix it with Chicory.
Ephemeris: see SPIDERWORT
*ESCAROLE “Retire At Once”
ESCHOLZIA “Do Not Refuse Me”
EUCALYPTUS “Honesty”
EUPATORIUM “Delay”
Eupatorium probably gets this meaning for blooming so late in the summer. See, most floriographers do not bother to give a reason for any meaning, preferring to fill their space with poetry, some of which never even mentions the flower under discussion. An exception was the Lover of Flowers (perhaps a relative of the publisher, who wrote some of the Lover’s Book of books himself.) She fills the back pages of her dictionary with all kinds of flower trivia, not all of which she endorses. She scoffs at a legend that if you put flowers by your window, no evil image can get through the glass. (Try some next to your computer.) Another tradition claims that to wear flowers is to invite the angels. She notes that she’s worn flowers plenty of times, and if any angels dropped by, they were too shy to talk to her. She was a Lover of Flowers, but she refused to play the sap for them.
Evergreen: see CLEMATIS, EVERGREEN
EVERLASTING “Never-Ceasing Remembrance”
Name and meaning alike come from the fact that these flowers do not fade when they die.
It’s that time of year again. The air is chill, night comes more quickly than before, and ghosts roam out with ghouls in search of things that go crunch in the night. And by that I mean Nestle’s Crunch, along with bite-size Snickers, miniature Snickers, and full-size Snickers. Here’s hoping your share of the loot this year does not contain a lot of apples and sugar-free gum, and you can instead gorge on Milk Duds or SweeTarts or Peanut M&Ms, as suits your tastes.
It is also that time of year when I have to explain that I have no Halloween postcards to show off.
See, although there are plenty of people who collect the postcards of Christmas or St. Patrick’s Day or the Fourth of July, those tend to be a little diffused. There are LOTS of symbols of Christmas, and collectors tend to go for one part or another: they collect Santa Clauses or Snowmen or children opening gifts. The Fourth of July may be flags or Uncle Same or fireworks, and St. Patrick’s Day may involve sentimental scenes of Ireland or comical Pats and Mikes in bars or shamrocks.
But Halloween is SCARY, and artists toss off their restraints with spooky cats and pumpkins and witches with cauldrons. The colors are bright, and artists go for impact, so demand is high for these. So are prices. These do not come to me in the job lots I deal with
I do have black cats, some of which look pretty sinister.
And there are monsters aplenty on land who do not rely on October 31st to look dangerous.
Sea creatures have always struck our ancestors as dangerous.
And even our happy-go-lucky fishing cards carry terrors from the deep.
Some of which belong in Halloween visions or nightmares.
More land-based critters can be sinister while going about their daily jobs as well.
Even the noble wild rabbit can seem dangerous in some of its rarer versions.
And no good Halloween movie festival would be complete without a few examples of animals whom science has turned into something else. (All of those of you who saw this and wanted to make a joke about T&A, shame on you for knowing such an old naughty phrase,. That will cost you one Hershey bar—WITH almonds. Pay your fine in the basket by the door.)
As long as we’re speaking of themes the horror movie festival should not be without, let us not forget invoking the Other World.
This zombie picture comes from the era when the poem about the “pansy faces” was still current. (When our flower language dictionary gets to the letter P, we will discuss some of this word’s history, but the poem was talking simply about flowers, and so is this zombie dream.)
As for this chap from the Sixties, he is clearly a refugee from some B-movie monster show.
So, as we have shown before, it IS possible to discuss Halloween and postcards without actually having any Halloween postcards to show off. (For some terrific bursts of orange and black, go Google “vintage Halloween postcard” and see what sorts of things you will probably never be able to buy from me.)
There are plenty of postcards which deal with doctors, just as, if you can remember way back to the serialization of my book on old jokes, there were a lot of jokes about doctors. I have related this to a medieval fear of powerful community figures who spoke Latin and who seemed to be in business just to give you trouble (lawyers, priests, and doctors) and how this fear led to a number of salty stories and jokes.
Another result of this feeling about the learned professions was an inclination to have as little as one possibly could to do with such people. (There were other types of people, of course. There were always those who considered the lawyer, priest, doctor their infallible ticket to riches, Heaven, or perfect health. The truth lies somewhere between.) Postcard cartoonists, being equal opportunity annoyers, were quick to make fun of those who relied on home remedies or other non-prescription ways to cure all your ills.
Cold? Sore throat? The man at the top of this column is making use of several traditional remedies–the foot bath, the flannel around the neck—but below is someone going full into cold prevention, with ice on his head to keep the fever down, a blanket around the shoulders, the steaming footbath…and the caption lets us know whether he can really hold off the inevitable.
Speaking of postponing the inevitable…but this is still a multi-million dollar industry, so let’s speak of other things. Part of the joke here is in its caption, which makes reference to a very popular painting, now largely forgotten, involving a nymph and an urn and not really having much to do with the cartoon. The artist just wanted to toss in the topical reference. (And by the way, when was the last time there was a painting that was a pop hit? Nighthawks? American Gothic? But that’s a whole nother blog.)
While we’re on the subject home remedies and multi-million dollar industries…note that she is modern enough to have forsaken the cold cream her mother might have used, and is relying on over-the-counter cures. The caption also regards sunburn as an inevitable part of summer fun. (Been there: you always figure you won’t let it happen THIS summer.)
One over-the-counter and/or home remedy was in every home. I could have done a whole blog just on laxative postcards alone, with castor oil leading the pack. You’re welcome.
Some people tried to handle their ailments and complaints with a change in diet. Thank goodness we have outgrown THIS notion, or we’d be offending another multi-million dollar industry. (Anybody else fascinated by the Gluten-Free Olives on the grocery shelves? We will gloss over the vile anti-freckle sentiment expressed on this card.)
If your cure wasn’t a change in diet, it might be plain dieting. This card combines the idea with dieting and a mid-century fascination with the emerging science of vitamins for a science fictiony look at an era when food itself would be obsolete.
But even more important to the consumer and the cartoonist was the increasing emphasis on regular exercise. Even before the fitness experts were doing their motivational strenuous lessons on radio, a health-conscious person could buy the same thing on 78 rpm records. (Were there any cylinder recording exercise programs? Someone go research that for me, would you?) The point, as with a lot of home remedies, was to avoid having to bother the doctor, but this fellow is going to require medical intervention just to stand up.
Fitness through regular exertion also became big business. How big the business was came secondary for cartoonists to explaining how big the customers were.
As popular as gym programs was the vacation exercise program, where you went on vacation to a spot which offered calisthenics on the beach. As you may have noticed in the vitamin card above, part of the fun was in seeing how seriously the consumer needed such attentions, and cheerfully admitting that it wasn’t any use anyhow.
Where all such home remedies wind up making their money is on the optimist, the person who believes that one or two doses of vitamins or a couple of trips to the gym would work miracles. And the cartoonists made their money by pointing out the gap between expectation and reality. This card dates from 1911 or thereabouts, and shows us that we haven’t changed all that much.
Henry Phillips says this comes from the use of coriander as an anti-colic drug given to women and children disguised in a bonbon. The men took it straight, I guess.
Anyway, most all the pioneers agree on this meaning: Mme. De Latour, Robert Tyas, Lucy Hooper, and Frances S. Osgood. Lucy Hooper’s book and Frances Osgood’s came out in 1841: they have so many meanings in common that one lady must have read the other’s book, and they both read Henry Phillips. Frances S. Osgood wrote two flower language books (which don’t always agree) and even a Language of Gems book. In this, gemstones agree that the reason so many more lovers give each other flowers than gems is because flowers have their own language (yeah, right.) So they decide the diamond will mean genius, the emerald hope, the sapphire truth, and so on.
Miss Osgood (most female poets were billed as Miss something or other at the time) was a literary light in her day, a person of some importance. Her personal reputation was at one time endangered by no less a personage than Edgar Allan Poe, and she went through a lot of trouble to get hold of some indiscreet letters she had written him. On his side, Poe wrote a number of poems to her, but left her out of his article on handwriting analysis, which did mention other floriographers. He analyzed the handwriting (and/or poetry) of Lydia H. Sigourney (“Freedom, dignity, precision, and grace, without originality…she has taste, without genius”), Sarah Josepha Hale (“Well known for her masculine style of thought”), and Miss Sedgwick (“Strong common sense, with a masculine disdain of mere ornament.”)
CORN “Riches”
Several books point out that they mean maize. In the old country, y’see, corn meant wheat, or just about any grain, while maize was used to refer to what right-thinking people call corn, or sweet corn.
Cornbottle: see CENTAURY
CORN COCKLE “Gentility”
See also CAMPION, ROSE
Cornflower: see CENTAURY
Cornel Tree: see DOGWOOD
COROMILLA “Success Crown Your Wishes”
Henry Phillips saw “corona” or crown in this name. His meaning was picked up by Lucy Hooper, whose book was more widely read than Phillips’s, and was passed on by the Lover of Flowers and Kate Greenaway. Lucy Hooper’s day job was as a poet, and her flower language compendium was her crowning achievement: a number of other poets, including William Cullen Bryant, contributed original verse to the collection. Her own verse, according to the critics, was only so-so, but some of it showed promise. She might have been another Lydia Sigourney or Frances Osgood had she not died at 25, after ten years as a professional poet and just after her flower language book appeared.
COSMELIA SUBRA “The Charm of a Blush”
*COSMOS “Far-Reaching”
Can’t argue with that.
*COTTON BLOSSOM “Happiness”
*COUCH-GRASS “Advice”
COWSLIP “Pensiveness. Winning Grace”
These two meanings run neck-and-neck, and lots of flower language books list both. This is a nice flower with a funny name, and it’s fun to watch the floriographers tiptoe around it. One expert claims the name comes from the flower’s aroma: it smells like a cow’s breath. Several others claim cows eat them, so you often see them dangling from a cow’s lip. More logical than asking why it shows Winning Grace to see a cow slip.
The real origin of the name, according to word workers, is in something else cows did. In fact, they claim the original form of the name was Cowslop; in some parts of England it is known as the Horseblob. See, the cowslip sprang up wherever the ground experienced a little extra fertilization. That is, wherever…you know.
COWSLIP, AMERICAN “You Are My Divinity”
According to our main floriographers, the Cowslip, or European Cowslip, is a yellow Primrose, whereas the American Cowslip is a Marsh Marigold, or Shooting Star. Naturally, other floriographers are flustered by this, and you will find the meanings switched between cowslips. However, this is the arrangement preferred by the percentage of dentists who chew gum.
This meaning is drawn from the scientific name of the flower, Dodecathon, which refers to a grouping of twelve gods. Claire Powell attributes this to each plant having twelve flowers, while John Ingram says each flower has twelve petals. They could both be correct. John Ingram, by the way, was the author of Flora Symbolica, which tried to investigate in an orderly way the history of flower language, and find out where the meanings came from. You could do this kind of thing in 1869.
CRAB BLOSSOM “Ill Nature”
How enchantingly direct!
CRAB BLOSSOM, SIBERIAN “Deeply Interesting”
I am deeply interested in whoever thought floriography would be lost without the Siberian Crab Blossom. A fellow researcher has suggested that some poor dub gave his girl a crab blossom without checking the flower dictionary first. So when she threw it in his face and cried, “So I’m ill-natured, am I?”, he realized what was wrong and spoke up right quick, saying, “No, that’s the DOMESTIC Crab Blossom. This is a SIBERIAN Crab Blossom.”
Nice idea, but the Siberian Crab Blossom pops up in Hooper and Osgood’s books in 1841, while the plain ill-natured crab blossom doesn’t appear until 1867, when A Lover of Flowers mentioned it. Another great story shot down by research.
CRANBERRY “Cure for Heartache”
I’d like to say a few words about people who cannot leave well enough alone. Some floriographers try to simplify and regulate the language of flowers (as opposed to the Lehners, who complicated it). Take George O’Neill, for example, who published in Brooklyn a guide which reduced all flower language meanings to one word per flower. These could then be
amplified by turning to second list in another chapter. He simplified things, you see, by making it necessary to consult two different lists for each blossom. Most people like this go into government, not flowers.
Then there was Carole Potter, not a floriographer but a general folklorist and collector of superstitions. In her book, Knock on Wood and Other Superstitions, she took flower language meanings from Claire Powell and Kate Greenaway and rewrote them for modern readers. My personal favorite is the Peach, which floriographers of the past made “Your Qualities, Like Your Charms, Are Unequalled” or “Your Charms Are Matchless.” Carole Potter makes it “You’re Terrific!” This system had its drawbacks. For the Cranberry, for example, she has “Cure for Headache”.
Crane’s Bill: see GERANIUM
Creeper, Virginia: see WOODBINE
*CRESS, GARDEN “Solace and Comfort”
CRESS, INDIAN “Resignation”
This refers not to leaving your job, but calmly and quietly accepting your fate.
CRESS, WATER “Stability”
They do tell me that when a florist talks about Indian Cress, like as not a nasturtium is meant. A botanist, however, uses Nasturtium to refer to Water Cress. The two cresses are not that closely related, so this is another victory of language over science. Most floriographers declined to get into the fight, and listed an entirely different meaning for Nasturtium than they used for any cresses.
CROCUS “Cheerfulness”
Laura Peroni insists that the ancient meaning of the crocus is Passionate Love. Peroni is the only floriographers to mention this. I have a deep distrust of true ancient wisdom known to only one person.
Crocus, Autumn: see SAFFRON, MEADOW
CROCUS, SAFFRON “Mirth”
CROCUS, SPRING “Youthful Gladness”
CROCUS, YELLOW “Be Merry”
All these crocus meanings relate to its early appearance in Spring, obviously an occasion for wild hooraw. Just to show you how this works, check Autumn Crocus, or Meadow Saffron.
CROSS OF JERUSALEM: “Devotion”
Crowfoot: see BUTTERCUP
Crowfoot, Aconite-Leaved: see FAIR MAIDS OF FRANCE
*CROWFOOT, CELERY-LEAVED “Ingratitude”
This is another buttercup. Claire Powell calls it the very worst: the nicer you are to it, the worse it grows.
*CROWFOOT, MUSK “Weakness”
CROWFOOT, WATER “Ingratitude”
CROWN IMPERIAL “Majesty and Power”
You want to be sure to toss this into the hat if ever you try John Ingram’s Flower Oracle. In this fortune-telling game, you write the names of different flowers on slips of paper. Each
person then draws a slip from the hat and checks the flower language dictionary. This predicts the chief quality of your future spouse or consort.
But you’re not done. Now toss all the flower slips back into the hat and draw again. This second slip will tell you your future spouse’s occupation. A lily indicates a nobleman, a rose an artist, a thistle a soldier, an oak leaf a farmer, a laurel leaf a poet, an apple blossom a lawyer, cypress a doctor, and a tulip a freeholder. (I checked: a freeholder is one who owns a freehold.)
That’s as far as Ingram goes. We could do rather better, I think. A hollyhock could represent a pawnbroker, Dogwood could be a veterinarian, cyclamen a professional bicycle racer, rock madwort a pop singer, narcissus a movie star, and parsley an Elvis impersonator.
CROWSBILL “Envy”
CUCKOO FLOWER “Ardor”*
According to B.J. Healey, a flower name man, this plant is loaded with sexual connotations, cuckoos being considered highly sexual critters. It is also known as Lady’s Smock, and for some of our history, smock was not a word used by polite people. “Smock” was used generally to imply a greater interest in what was under the garment than the garment itself, and the smock was the garment worn closest to the skin by much of the population in the Middle Ages. All this got passed on to the flower, which became an emblem of lust, or strong passion, or ardor, depending on how politely you wanted to express yourself.
Cuckoo Pint: see ARUM
CUCUMBER “Critics”
Most of the early floriographers were poets as well, and if you want to know what they thought of critics, you need only observe that this is listed in most books as the Spitting Cucumber.
Cudweed: see EVERLASTINH
*CUMIN “The Door Is Open”
Must have our little joke.
CURRANT “They frown Will Kill Me”
CURRANTS, BRANCH OF “You Please All”
Henry Phillips claims the flavor of currants is so bland they can’t displease anyone. Some floriographers specify Black Currants for “Thy Frown Will Kill Me” and Red Currants for “You Please All”.
*CURRANTS, RED “Lechery”
CURRANTS, WHITE “I Would Change You”
Cuscuta: see DODDER
Cushew Nut: see CASHEW
Cyanus: see CENTAURY
CYCLAMEN “Diffidence”
Henry Phillips says the Cyclamen never raises its head, and is thus diffident, or lacking in self-confidence. Most other floriographers refer to a superstition that a pregnant woman who steps over cyclamen is risking miscarriage. I don’t quite see what this has to do with diffidence.
CYPRESS “Mourning”
This has been used as a symbol of death, grief, and mourning since the days of Ancient Egypt. The Greeks told the tale of Cyparissus. Apollo, one of the smoothest and best-looking of Greek gods, had the worst track record as a lover. It seems, looking over the storybooks, that practically anybody he looked at twice wound up as a plant. Cyparissus was a young man who enjoyed Apollo’s favors, but wept himself to death when he accidentally killed his pet stag. Apollo used his influence to get Cyparissus turned into the cypress tree, which continues to mourn.
When Apollo strolled through the forest, it wasn’t so much a nature walk as a look through his scrapbook.
CYPRESS WITH MARIGOLDS “Despair”
Agatha Christie knew her flower language, and wrote a mystery called Sad Cypress. She also wrote a short story in which flower language played a major role. No, NOT “The Blue Geranium”: she made up the flower language in that one. In “The Four Suspects”, she used the real thing. (She was also clever enough to be sure flower language wasn’t the only clue; she could deduce what percentage of her readers were students of floriography.)
There have been so many references to roosters, hens, and chickens in this space lately that I thought a few of my own reflections on birds would be of interest. No, I said that incorrectly. I thought they would be of no interest at all except to me, but it’s my blog, and I’ll reminisce if I feel good and like it
I come from a family of regular birdwatchers. My parents had their worn copy of Roger Tory Peterson’s guide in the living room to identify unusual guests at the birdfeeders (four outside these windows and about six in the back yard.) My mother would order me to check out some unknown visitor bird while she called my father at work. “Does it have a yellow stripe under its eye?” she would ask me.
It isn’t something I stressed about unduly as a child, but I am completely unfitted for this sort of work. Yellow stripe? Under its eye? That thing’s on the lawn, Ma, in the grass: I can’t even tell which end the head is on. Even with glasses as thick as hickey pucks, my experience birdwatching was later expressed in a poem with the refrain “I cannot believe, despite all I have heard, that that blob on that branch is a bird.”
So despite home training and regular visits to a local resident known as the Bird Man, who kept peacocks and other exotic birds in his back yard, my acquaintance with our feathered friends was amiable, but never close.
Working at a Book Fair inside a library for thirty-five years may not seem an ideal way to watch birds, but for roughly thirty of those years I worked in a large room which, conveniently for me and the donors, opened on the parking lot. There were benefits to this besides being able to just step outside and unload encyclopedias out of someone’s trunk. Once when the electricity went out all over the block and everyone in the place was sent home, I just opened the doors and worked by sunlight until I was tracked down and told to scram. (The open door was alerting the emergency security alarms.)
However, this also brought the occasional unwanted guest. Some passing sparrow would see the open double doors and fly inside to see if this was a useful shelter. This would shut down all operations. I, personally, do not work well when I am unacquainted with other living things in the room. Besides, if I opened the door into the library and the sparrow flew into the lobby to register for a reader’s card, I would be in for a long run of meetings, possibly with my supervisors or, worse, with committees.
Perhaps you’ve heard the folk wisdom which tells us that in cases like this, you need merely turn off the lights, leaving the door open. The bird will fly to sunlight, unnerved by the sudden appearance of night in this strange place. It never worked like that.
The sparrows in question, enjoying the temperature inside the room and seeing night come on, would find little spots to shelter among the stacked boxes of books, or a dark corner of a bookcase. This made working even more adventurous: nothing like reaching for a book and having something move under your hand.
So I developed my own system. Leaving the big doors open, I would move up the ramp to the light switch, and darken the room. THEN I would start to meow. I once had a fluent and realistic cat vocabulary. Many a sparrow decided that between the darkness and the prowling cat, this was a bad bet, and zipped back into the outside world. Yeah, on other occasions, I would meander through the room for half an hour or so, meowing as the sparrow zipped from one safe nesting spot to another around the room. Fortunately, no one ever came into the room while I was busy with this.
Once, the sparrow flew in on a Saturday afternoon, and I had to leave before chasing it outside. The receiving room was used as a loading and unloading spot by catering crews which handled weekend weddings at the library. I wondered what THEY would make of the guest. I found out Monday morning. Having no skill at meowing birds out of a room, they had taken my stack of paperback romances for ammunition. The sparrow was still there, but was glad to leave when I opened the back door (no food in this stupid place.) And it took three years to find all the romance novels that had landed among the ductwork by the ceiling.
On another occasion I just left, allowing the guest free range in the receiving room. I heard a flutter of wings and turned to glare at the offending sparrow and found a much larger bird, confused but willing to look around the joint. I considered the tourist and left him to it. A curlew, see, comes armed with a long, thin bill about as long as, oh, a small alligator. I didn’t even bother to meow: let the big thug with the knife find his own way out.
I also once allowed the Loading Dock outside the doors to serve as a Bird Sanctuary. During a Polar Vortex, I opened the back doors one morning and found the recycling bins on the dock decorated wall to wall with a puffed-out birds sheltering together from the wind: pigeons and robins and the occasional sparrow. I looked at them and they looked at me: they had no intention of moving until the sun was fully out. I just said “Thought you guys flew south” and retired back into the relative warmth before they could try to join me.
My bastion of books and occasional birds was removed during a Grand Renovation, and now my bird observations are limited to hearing the songbirds in my neighborhood (which sing, in chorus, songs which have recognizable verses and refrains) and even the crows. Why listen to crows?
Oh, all right, if you’re going to cry and kick your heels, we’ll talk about the chicks and their role on postcards of a century or so ago. This is NOT the right time of year, as you will see, but as, just like last year, I don’t really have any Halloween cards, I will accept the inevitable.
Eggs are laid all year around, and yet somehow the little ball of fluff which comes out of it is tied by tradition to the coming of Spring. Maybe it’s some deep inner spring within the human imagination which looks at a chick, a creature which can be seen working its way gradually into the outside world and thinks of the slow but inevitable emergence of life after a long hibernation. Or perhaps we look at something which could be born at any time of year and see in this the hopes of the new season, which is just as cyclical and (one hoped) as inevitable.
Or maybe we just like looking at critters that are cute.
The first great feast day of Spring was, of course, Easter. We will let the philosophers debate whether the date of Easter is really linked to earlier Spring holidays, and discuss the symbolism of birth, rebirth, and resurrection. For every poem showing Christ emerging from the tomb there are a hundred showing a fluffy yellow fuzzball emerging from an egg.
This card shows the momentous occasion, and uses a frame to remind us what that shell used to look like, in case we forgot.
Sometimes the chick is a little surprised to see us making a fuss about it. (“are there going to be bells every time I undress? Wait ‘til I start molting.”)
The chick is frequently seen looking at its old home. (“Seems to me I got free meals when I was inside there. Any leftovers for alumni?”)
And because we want to toss in as many Spring symbols as possible, there are generally always flowers in the vicinity. Does the chick care about these? Probably not. (“I/d like to climb back in there. I just saw something called a cat and it was a lot more violent than those pussywillows.”)
We will also see Easter eggs mixed into the picture. This also confuses the former egg occupant. (“They tell me these are hardboiled, so these guys should be really interesting when they hatch out. Speaking of new words, what does ‘a la king’ mean?”)
The world of the postcard has no particular limits on what may come out of eggs, further confusing the chick. (“If you sit on this one, Mamma, there won’t be any room left for me.”)
Or does a chick look on its egg as a past phase, to be forgotten as soon as it is finished? This chick apparently ignores pretty much everything, though. (“Art Nouveau? Phooey! Where’s the food?”)
Some postcard artists simply plunk a chick down in the middle of everything else. This distinguishes the Easter cards from all the other cards they do with pretty flowers all over the place. (“Well, this is a little roomier than my last egg. Nice view from the window. But who are all these people looking at me?”)
Others bundle him in with whatever Easter symbol might appeal to the viewer. (“A basket full of roses, huh? What’s the matter: nobody’s invented jellybeans yet?”)
The more symbols you can fit in, of course, the more likely the postcard-buying public will know this is an Easter card. (“This is really nice, and I can see a homily coming about why Dad crows at daybreak. You wait for that while I go pick out a Halloween costume. I’ll throw on everything I find and go as a postcard artist.”)
Blogsy Babbles 