Pollen Nation

Fir Tree – The Daily Flower for 27 March

Had he but world enough, and time, high praise of his coy mistress would be no crime in the eyes of Andrew Marvell’s narrator. Indeed there’d be good occasion for elevation. So, in the name of expediency (time being of the essence and all that), the worm-warning bearer of that vegetable love should have given the object of his desire a fir tree. That would have been a far more succinct way of expressing ‘time’ and ‘elevation’. Except, of course, the language of flowers wasn’t yet invented in the mid-17th century.

Fir trees, on the other hand, had been around since time immemorial. And stick around for almost that long, too (there’s an Abies amabilis in British Columbia that’s heading for its eighth century). You can often tell the length of time one of these evergreens has been around by its height – their upright trunks usually produce a branch whorl on a yearly basis.

These regular whorls are one way to spot the difference between firs and Pinaceae family cousins the pines, but, to this end, it’s easier to take a look at what’s on the branches than at the branches themselves. Unlike pines, firs have upright cones and needles look a bit like they're suctioned onto the twigs, rather than growing out of them.

Abies amabilis shoot (enlarged) by MPF

Good for giving to: Big-upped beauties and celebrated chronologists

Great firs in literature:

"Give me of your balm, O Fir-tree!
Of your balsam and your resin,
So to close the seams together
That the water may not enter,
That the river may not wet me!"
And the Fir-tree, tall and sombre,
Sobbed through all its robes of darkness,
Rattled like a shore with pebbles,
Answered wailing, answered weeping,
"Take my balm, O Hiawatha!"
And he took the tears of balsam,
Took the resin of the Fir-tree,
Smeared therewith each seam and fissure,
Made each crevice safe from water.

From 'Hiawatha's Sailing' by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tags: flowers, fir tree, Abies, floriography

 

Pitch Pine – The Daily Flower for 26 March

One gets the strong suspicion that, by the time they reached the pitch pine (having not long before attributed meaning to pine in general), the floriographers were clutching at the straw-like needles for suitable meanings.

Pitch pine, you see, is so named because it yields pitch, more commonly known as turpentine and more generally known as a solvent. Now, in the language of flowers, Pinus rigida connotes philosophy – a meaning that seems to bear little connection to the gnarly russet-coloured bark or long needles of the tree apart from the orthographic echo of ‘solver’ in ‘solvent’.

Derrida would surely approve.

Pinus rigida by Robert H. Mohlenbrock @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database

Good for giving to: Thinkers and thinners fans.

Great pitch pines in literature: Perhaps as inspirational to someone as the melted wax was to Descartes?

The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees--
the flames--with the black smoke from the pitch-pine, curling
and rising;

From 'American Feuillage' by Walt Whitman

Tags: flowers, Pinus rigida, pitch pine, floriography

 

Woodbine – The Daily Flower for 23 March

Virginal ivy, fraternal love and old-fashioned cigarettes conjure up a kind of smoky yellow ambiance of Brideshead Revisited, but there’s a stronger link between these images than some romanticised literary mood.

Parthenocissus vitacea (from the Greek parthenos, meaning virgin, and kissos, meaning ivy), commonly known as woodbine (as are, confusingly, some species of honeysuckle and some wartime fags) is a vine-like thicket creeper with palmate leaves, clusters of little greenish flowers and poisonous grape-coloured drupes that connotes fraternal love in floriography.

Wills's 'Woodbine' by Very Good With Computers

Parthenocissus vitacea (Knerr) A.S. Hitchc. – woodbine (USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database)

Good for giving to: Benevolent brotherly types.

Great woodbine in literature: A sororal scene on the stoep:

Sometimes they would work on the side porch where the clematis and woodbine shaded them from the hot sun.

From Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin

Tags: flowers, woodbine, Parthenocissus vitacea, floriography

 

Maidenhair – The Daily Flower for 22 March

Today's daily flower connotes secrecy in floriography. The first secret being that it isn't a flower at all. Like all ferns, maidenhair is a non-vascular, non-flowering, seedless plant – and here comes its second secret: maidenhair it may be, but maidenhead? Nope. Ferns have a full 5-phase lifecycle.

For something supposedly so secretive, there are a surprising number of maidenheads around – over 200 species, in fact. And they're not all small and shy, either; many ferns in the Adiantum (meanin, roughly, 'unwettable') genus are quite enormous.

True maidenhair, Adiantum Capillus-veneris, is purported to have a whole host of hidden medicinal properties to boot: from a hair tonic (must have been during the hey-day of correlative doctoring) to 'a remedy in pectoral complaints'. Do the remedies actually work? Well, that'd be telling, now, wouldn't it?

Adiantum capillus-veneris

Good for giving to: Tight-lipped, teflon-coated ticklethroats.

Great maidenhair in literature:

May, they told him, was in the dining-room inspecting the mound of Jacqueminot roses and maidenhair in the centre of the long table, and the placing of the Maillard bonbons in openwork silver baskets between the candelabra.

From 'The Age of Innocence'  by Edith Wharton

Tags: flowers, Maidenhair, fern, Adiantum capillus-veneris, floriography

Pine – The Daily Flower for 21 March

It comes from the Pinaceae family, but it might as well come from Pinocchio's family – and not just because it's made of wood like Geppetto's unreal boy.

For starters, Pinocchio means pine nut. Secondly, the lad was rather a pitiful character, although he certainly showed endurance and daring; no guesses as to what the pine connotes in the language of flowers. Some might also argue that the elongated 'flowers' of the pinus look rather like the fictional marionette's nose – but perhaps that's stretching things a bit far…

Pinus sylvestris flowers by ruba_ch

Good for giving to: Forlorn fabricators.

Great pines in literature: A miserable scene, unless, of course, you're daring:

Rising in steep roofs and spires of seagreen slate in the manner of the old French-Scotch chateaux, it reminded an Englishman of the sinister steeple-hats of witches in fairy tales; and the pine woods that rocked round the green turrets looked, by comparison, as black as numberless flocks of ravens.

From The Innocence Of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton

Tags: flowers, Pinus, Pine, floriography

 

Lettuce – The Daily Flower for 20 March

Paper money, a lack of intimacy and mild opiates are not the kind of thing you'd usually think to find lurking quietly in the garden. But gardens are full of surprises – especially ones in which you find Lactuca sativa growing.

Yes, the humble lettuce: slang for cash, floriographic connoter of cold-heartedness and producer of the milky substance lactucarium, a.k.a. lettuce opium. And you thought all the Asteraceaes were fresh-faced as daisies? The similarity between the cultivated lettuce and the rest of its botanical family seem, on the surface of it at any rate, to stop at its clusters of butter-coloured dandelion-like flowers.

Bolting lettuce by Charles & Clint

Putting the money (lettuce?) in the lettuce by Mussels

Good for giving to: Frigid seekers of salad days.

Great lettuces in literature: Perhaps Jelila Jamb would be a good match for the Tin Man:

At this moment the soldier returned leading a young girl by the hand. She seemed very sweet and modest, having a pretty face and beautiful green eyes and hair. A dainty green silk skirt reached to her knees, showing silk stockings embroidered with pea-pods, and green satin slippers with bunches of lettuce for decorations instead of bows or buckles.

From The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Tags: flowers, lettuce, Lactuca sativa, floriography

 

Virginia Snakeroot – The Daily Flower for 19 March

The horror! The horror! Mistah Kurtz, he dead. Alas, 'twas not by venomous asp that Conrad's antagonist met his bitter end, but perhaps he thought a bit of Aristolochia serpentaria might help him anyway. Thousands of cultural critics may disagree, but just as many horticulturalists might suspect that the dying words of the adventurer were a plea for some Virginia snakeroot, which is shorthand for horror in the language of flowers.

Although this North American native was used by native North Americans to treat snakebites, you ought be wary of the plant as it's got a heart of darkness, too (heart-shaped leaves as well, but that's beside the point): excess ingestion of the tuber can lead to all sorts of nasty gastro-intestinal complications and sometimes-fatal breathing problems.

Best, then, to keep away from this brown-flowered perennial. You shouldn't find that too tricky, though; it's a bit of a stinker.

Virginia snakeroot (USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. Illustrated flora of the northern states and Canada. Vol. 1: 645.)

Good for giving to: Nostrum peddlars.

Great snakeroot in literature:

"Wha'd Ah take?" Well, le' me see:
Firs',—horhound drops an' catnip tea;
Den rock candy soaked in rum,
An' a good sized chunk o' camphor gum;
Next Ah tried was castor oil,
An' snakeroot tea brought to a boil;
Sassafras tea fo' to clean mah blood;
But none o' dem t'ings didn' do no good.
Den when home remedies seem to shirk,
Dem pantry bottles was put to work

From 'Calling the Doctor' by John Wesley Holloway

Tags: flowers, Aristolochia serpentaria, Virginia snakeroot, floriography

Valerian – The Daily Flower for 16 March

I'd wager a large pinch of salt (very valuable, at one time, you know) that those Victorian floriographers walked around grinning in perpetuity. Nothing but an extremely wry sense of humour can explain how valerian – a plant used medicinally as a sedative and that shares its name with a Roman emperor who was forever in the financial doldrums and beset by military mishaps – came to connote 'good disposition'.

True, sleep is rather a good disposition to be in, and the insomnia-alleviating Valeriana officinalis is a friend in deed to those seeking temporary oblivion. And, come to think of it, disposition can also mean getting rid of something; as well as boasting pretty little corymbs of pinkish, sweet-scented flowers, valerian is rich in valeric acid, which purportedly banishes acne.

Valerian

Good for giving to: Cats.

Great valerian in literature:

Sleep is a friend I have fallen out with,
I wish she would come back to me.

I bring her Valerian, milk and honey,
I plead with her, I promise her dreams.

From 'Insomnia' by Julia Darling

Tags: flowers, Valerian, Valeriana officinalis, floriography

Walnut – The Daily Flower for 15 March

"Beware the Ides of March" – quite a premonition that Caesar-warning seer had. Fitting then, that the walnut, which connotes 'presentiment' in floriography, is the flower of the day for 15 March.

Or, perhaps it came to be today's flower by another means: as well as allegedly quelling herd-following instincts, walnut essence is believed to help those 'over-sensitive to certain ideas' who 'need protection from outside influences'.

Juglans regia from Koehler's Medicinal-Plants 1887

Perhaps old Julius ought to have munched on the fruit of one of the 21 species in the Juglans genus (the name is derived from the Latin for Jove's nuts), or even worn a laurel of their greeny-yellow catkins instead of his usual bay leaves.

Good for giving to: People who should be looking over their shoulders.

Great walnuts in literature: Is there another meaning of the walnut that we've missed?:

"My husbands are also out there gathering wood." She drew a handful of walnuts from her bosom, split one neatly, and began to eat. Kim affected blank ignorance.

"Dost thou not know the meaning of the walnut -- priest?" she said coyly, and handed him the half-shells. "Well thought of." He slipped the piece of paper between them quickly. "Hast thou a little wax to close them on this letter?"

From Kim by Rudyard Kipling

More walnut pictures: Close-up of a catkin at Otter Farm and Arboreality's impressive Juglans nigra.

Tags: flowers, walnut, Juglans, floriography

White Violet – The Daily Flower for 14 March

The Little White Violet is a silent black-and-white film produced by the prolific Lucius J. Henderson in 1915. Other than the fact that it involved a nun, the film's finer details have eluded our researchers rather effectively.

And, in a strange symmetry…

The white violet is a pale-flowered perennial in the Violaceae family (binomial: Viola alba). Other than the fact that it connotes innocence in floriography, the flower's finer details have eluded our researchers rather effectively.

White violet (Viola alba)

Good for giving to: Someone in whose mouth butter wouldn't melt, let alone parma violet sweets.

Great white violets in literature: A virtuous picture indeed:

Through the crowd there came a little form, a wreath of pure white violets lay among the bright locks that fell so softly round the gentle face, where a deep blush glowed [...]

From Flower Fables by  Louisa May Alcott

Tags: flowers, white violet, parma violet, Viola alba, floriography

Grass – The Daily Flower for 13 March

Bahia grass, bent grass, bermuda grass, blue grass, buffalo grass, carpet grass, centipede grass, grama grass, rye grass, zoysia grass, or even the more erudite-sounding St. Augustine Grass and Princess 77 Bermuda. With around 10,000 species in the Poaceae family to choose from, you can be pretty sure the grass is not always greener on this side, let alone the other.

Sure, the lawn crops listed above pretty much run the gamut from Ao to Vert, but there’s also a whole palette of palatable tans and browns amongst the graincrop grasses.

Manila Grass (Zoysia matrella)

Useful stuff, that grass (as the floriographers deigned to remind us by ascribing that very connotation to the hollow-stemmed, sheath-bladed plant). But don’t forget about its beauty: grass boasts complicated little wind-pollinated flowers. It's even said, in certain circles, that grass's ancestor may have been a small Liliaceous plant.

Good for giving to: Functional friends.

Great grass in literature: Doing its job? Would that it wasn't made for this:

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
                I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
       Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
                What place is this?
                Where are we now?

                I am the grass.
                Let me work.

'Grass' (1918) by Carl Sandburg

Tags: flowers, grass, Poaceae, floriography

Cucumber – The Daily Flower for 12 March

She's as cool as a cucumber. Oh, really? Is she not warm to the touch, just like the oblong green fruits of Cucumis sativus? Is she quite imperturbable, rather unlike this gourd-family member, which often gets itself in pickle? Or is she 'marked by deliberate effrontery or lack of due respect or discretion', somewhat prone to 'criticism' – the floriographic connotation of the bright yellow blooms of today's flower?

Well, if you'd like to warm her up with a bit of a flush, unsettle her composure or get her to swallow her words, give her a cucumber to chew on: the seeds are known to give people gas. Just make sure it's not the English 'Burpless' variety, which has been specifically cultivated sans seeds to combat belching.

Cucumber flower by audreyjm529

Good for giving to: Nit-pickers and mudslingers.

Great cucumbers in literature: Erudite or eructate?:

The buyer in the 'gentleman's hosiery' was a well-known reciter, and he was called upon loudly to perform by all the assistants in his department. Needing no pressing, he gave a long poem of tragic character, in which he rolled his eyes, put his hand on his chest, and acted as though he were in great agony. The point, that he had eaten cucumber for supper, was divulged in the last line and was greeted with laughter, a little forced because everyone knew the poem well, but loud and long.

From Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

Tags: flowers, cucumber, pickle, gherkin, Cucumis sativus, floriography

Kingcup – The Daily Flower for 9 March

Caltha palustris
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum.
Caltha palustris
I wouldn't have to work hard.
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
Biddy biddy king,
Yidle-diddle-didle-didle cup.

The Fiddler on the Roof, a la floriography. As anyone au fait with the language of flowers will tell you, Caltha palustris (more commonly known as kingcup or marsh marigold; more ignominiously known as may blobs) is shorthand for 'I wish I were rich'.

Kingcup by mwri

Funnily enough, if you find yourself in dire financial straits with a desire to drown your sorrows, kingcup's a good friend to have. It won't buy you a drink, but it will offer you one of its heart-shaped leaves to chew on. A few more, and you'll find yourself feeling a tad intoxicated.

Bright yellow and bowl-shaped, this little cup of the marshes is immediately recognisable as a member of the Ranunculaceae family. In fact, the flowers look like a slightly waxier version of the buttercup. You can eat the flowers too (without the risk of getting tipsy) – they're said to be a good substitute for capers.

Good for giving to: Money-hungry dreamers.

Great kingcups in literature: Featured in a love poem, where surely it's referenced for its beauty rather than its connotation:

All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
...Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge
...Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

From 'Silent Noon' by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Tags: flowers, kingcup, Marsh marigold, May blobs, Caltha palustris, floriography

Olive – The Daily Flower for 8 March

Wine and olives: two key ingredients for an evening of great conversation. And a great way to ensure that the great conversation never deteriorates into too heated debate. Just before you migrate from attacking an idea to attacking the man, stop – and offer your companion another olive. It's modern shorthand for 'peace'.

True, it's more the olive branch with its scented white blossoms than the tasty drupes that have symbolised freedom from strife in the past, but one does what one can when once doesn't have easy access to a sprig of the Mediterranean native.

Olea europaea from Koehler's Medicinal-Plants 1887

Olive trees (or extracts thereof) are also used in Bach flower remedies. Apparently, 'the keywords for prescribing it are 'Complete exhaustion' and 'Mental fatigue'' – so it's not only a good prescription for peace, but for peace of mind.

Good for giving to: Belligerent fools.

Great olives in literature: Westmorland knows just what the olive means:

Health to my sovereign, and new happiness Added to that that am to deliver!
Prince John, your son, doth kiss your Grace's hand.v Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop, Hastings, and all,
Are brought to the correction of your law.
There is not now a rebel's sword unsheath'd,
But Peace puts forth her olive everywhere.
The manner how this action hath been borne
Here at more leisure may your Highness read,
With every course in his particular.
From Act IV, Scene IV of King Henry IV, Part 2 by William Shakespeare

Tags: flowers, olive, Olea europaea, floriography

Hyacinth – The Daily Flower for 7 March

When he saw her come back, late, from the office,
Her arms full, and her hair wet
She reminded him of the hyacinth girl
In that classic poem by Eliot.
And so, inspired to be that much gallanter,
He sent her flowers in white and lavender.
Perhaps it was prescience, perhaps just a hunch,
but he knew that, for her,
March would now cease to be
The cruellest month.

(With apologies to T.S. Eliot)

Belladonna, honey-scented hyacinths mixing memory and desire at Serenata Flowers

If legend is true, the hyacinth has a noble and sporting heritage. A handsome young discus player, Hyakinthos, the apple of Apollo’s eye, was practising his throws when the jealous West Wind blew the heavy disc back at him – and from his blood the beautiful hyacinth grew.

The Aromatherapy arrangement (great for masking the city's unguent smells) from Serenata Flowers

Nowadays (outside of wood-panelled libraries), hyacinths are still associated with sport, particularly apt as the long stems crowned with clusters of starlike flowerlets can be seen as floral replicas of the Olympic torch.

Good for giving to: Anyone in need of a little faith (according to the floriographers).

Great hyacinths in literature:

According to the great alchemist, Pierre de Boniface, the diamond rendered a man invisible, and the agate of India made him eloquent. The cornelian appeased anger, and the hyacinth provoked sleep, and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wine.

From The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Tags: flowers, Hyacinthus orientalis, hyacinth, floriography

Dog’s Bane – The Daily Flower for 6 March

Whatever happened to ‘man’s best friend’? Canine qualities were clearly not held in much esteem by the custodians of the Language of Flowers. Else, surely, they would have come up with a kinder connotation for Dog’s Bane than deceit.

Not so hasty, now… a little more research reveals that the apostrophe in Dog’s Bane indicates a possessive rather than an omission (and a little more yet reveals that the apostrophe and the ‘S’ have been dropped altogether; these days, it’s simply dogbane). Rather than concurring that curs are a curse, the apostrophe in the common name of yore suggested that Apocynum cannabinum was a pest to our much-loved pets.

Apocynum cannabinum (dogbane)

As Greek scholars will confirm, the first bit of the plant’s biological binomial is derived from ‘apo’ (away) and ‘kynos’ (dog), and the toxic milky stuff that seeps from the reddish stems most certainly has a bite that’s a lot more dangerous as than its ‘bark’.

The stems may have been a danger to dogs, but proved rather useful to Native Americans who used the hemplike (hence cannabinum) fibres to make nets and clothing. This rather undeceitful usage is quite likely what inspired dogbane’s other common name: Indian Hemp.

Good for giving to: Fibbing Fidos.

Great dogbanes in literature: A rather lovely student's poem over here.

Tags: flowers, dog's bane, dogbane, Indian hemp, Apocynum cannabinum, floriography

Poppy Anemone – The Daily Flower for 5 March

in Just-
spring when the world is pop-
pylicious the little
coronaria anemone
blooms blue and red

and youandi come
running in antici-
pation (its
meaning

when the world was industrially re
volving)

the pretty
little windflower (family
Ranun-
culaceae) comes dancing
in bluewhiteorred and

it's
spring
and
the

five-to-eight-petalled
anemone is wind-
whisked
far
and
wee

(With apologies to ee cummings)

Sapphire Nights, an anemone arrangement that's filled with promise at Serenata Flowers

Good for giving to: Anyone expectant .

Great anemones in literature:

The anemone and the columbine
have grown in the garden
where melancholy sleeps
between love and disdain

our shadows also come there
which the night will dissipate
the sun that turns them dark
with them will disappear

the deities of the running waters
let their hair flow
pass you must give chase to
that beautiful shadow which you desire

'Clotilde' by Guillaume Apollinaire (trans. Christopher Goldsack)

Tags: flowers, Anemone coronaria, poppy anemone, windflower, floriography

Thorn – The Daily Flower for 2 March

They say every rose has one, but it might be time to question the seriousness of such a claim. Sincerity (and severity, but in bad times, whose splitting hairs?) may be what thorns connote, but are those bona fide pokers we see on the rose?

Apparently not: "Roses lack true thorns since their prickles emerge from the epidermis rather than the pericycle". So it looks like we're going to be splitting hairs after all, as this, technically speaking, makes the rose's protrusion a prickle.

Real thorns (not prickles) by pixie

Both prickles and thorns are part of the larger botanical category spines. Their bite may be as bad as their bark, but in reality, spines are just psychotic leaf- or branch-ends. And watch out if someone gives you a black one; it means difficulty is on the horizon (or maybe they just think you're, errr, um, a bit sharp.)

Good for giving to: Those who poke, but don't poke fun.

Great thorns in literature: A sincere but rather difficult request:

All night long you must sing to me, and the thorn must pierce your heart, and your life-blood must flow into my veins, and become mine.
From The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde

Tags: flowers, thorn, prickle, spine, floriography

Heliotrope – The Daily Flower for 1 March

Is it a rash? Is it a rock? Is it a vivid lavender colour? No. How about a surveying instrument? No again. A rock song? Nope. Don't give up yet, though. This is an exercise in 'remaining true' to your course.

If you can do that, then you most certainly deserve a reward. Tonight, Matthew, your prize shall be: a taste of Cherry Pie, a peek at St Helena, a hint of Summer or a Seaside view. And therein lies the answer of the heliotrope: the purple-blossomed flowers of the Heliotropium genus that boasts species with the aforementioned delightful names – and which connote devotion in floriography.

Heliotropium arborescens by Stan Shebs

Delightful names they may be, but they're definitely apt ones. The motto of the South Atlantic island St Helena is 'Loyal and Unshakeable', while the bright purple blossoms of the summer–flowering plant emit a fragrance that's the envy of Mr Kipling's bakwell tarts. As for Summer, well, that seems rather a fitting epithet for a genus whose etymological origins are 'helios', the Greek word for sun, and 'trope', meaning turning.

Good for giving to: Committed types.

Great heliotropes in literature: The great analytic philosopher refers to a cherry of a memory:

This is illustrated by Turgenev's "Smoke," where the hero is long puzzled by a haunting sense that something in his present is recalling something in his past, and at last traces it to the smell of heliotrope.
From The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell

Tags: flowers, Heliotropium, heliotrope, floriography