The Language of Flowers (Floriography)
The Victorian-era system of coding messages into flowers — the historical source of most flower 'meanings' today.
Also known as: Floriography, Flower symbolism
Floriography, or the language of flowers, is the cultural practice of assigning symbolic meanings to particular flowers so that a bouquet can carry a message. It reached its height in the 19th century, and it is the origin of most of the flower meanings quoted today — a rich tradition rather than a fixed code.
What it is
When a florist says red roses mean love or that yellow signals friendship, they are drawing on floriography — the language of flowers. Knowing its history explains both why these meanings feel authoritative and why they are not truly fixed.
The Victorian flowering. While symbolic uses of flowers are ancient and worldwide, the elaborate, dictionary-style "language of flowers" became a genuine craze in 19th-century Europe and America. Numerous published flower dictionaries assigned meanings to hundreds of blooms, and sending a carefully chosen posy — a tussie-mussie or nosegay — became a way to convey sentiments that social convention discouraged saying aloud.
How the code worked. Meaning could depend on the flower, its colour, its number, and even how it was presented — a flower given upside down could reverse its message, and the hand used to offer or receive it could signal yes or no. The result was an expressive, if playful, system layered over ordinary gift-giving.
Why meanings vary. Because the dictionaries were numerous and independent, they frequently disagreed, and meanings shifted between cultures and eras. There was never a single official codebook. So while broad associations are widely shared — roses with love, lilies with purity, rosemary with remembrance — the finer meanings are genuinely traditional and variable, not fixed facts.
Using it today. Floriography remains a delightful way to add intention to a gift: choosing blooms and colours for what they traditionally signify. The honest framing is to present these meanings as cultural tradition — historically grounded and widely recognised, but never invented on the spot and never claimed as more than custom. That is exactly how the flower profiles across this reference treat symbolism.
Seen this way, the language of flowers is a shared cultural inheritance: enjoyable, meaningful, and always worth attributing to tradition rather than fact.
Worked example
Composing a small bouquet to say thank you, someone uses floriography deliberately: pink carnations and pink roses, both traditionally signalling gratitude and admiration. They present it as a nod to the Victorian language of flowers — a shared cultural tradition — rather than claiming the meanings are fixed facts, which is the honest way to use flower symbolism.
Sources & further reading
- The Language of Flowers — a lover's code — Royal Horticultural Society (article)
- Nosegay — Encyclopaedia Britannica (article)