Floriography, or the language of flowers, is a form of cryptological communication in which flowers and their arrangements convey messages. Similar practices have existed for thousands of years across Europe, Asia, and Africa, but the tradition became especially associated with Victorian society.
Its modern European revival was influenced by Ottoman Turkey. The Turkish practice known as sélam used flowers and other objects wrapped in a handkerchief to create poetic messages. Travelers introduced the custom to European courts and England, while published dictionaries gradually assigned flowers symbolic definitions. Louise Cortambert’s 1819 book, written as Madame Charlotte de la Tour, became an important early dictionary, followed by popular English and American works.
During the nineteenth century, bouquets known as nosegays or tussie-mussies became fashionable accessories and romantic tools. People used them to communicate affection, friendship, mourning, or rejection. Meanings could depend on details: red roses suggested intense love, white roses virtue, yellow roses friendship, and mimosa chastity. A bouquet pinned over the heart declared love, while its position elsewhere could change the message. Even the giving hand mattered: right meant yes, left meant no.
These meanings were never universal. In Chinese art, the peony symbolizes wealth and nobility; the lotus represents purity and enlightenment; in Japan, cherry blossoms express the temporary beauty of life. Flowers also shape religious imagery, literature, painting, and contemporary art. Shakespeare used floral symbolism extensively, while Banksy’s Flower Thrower contrasts violence with peace.
Although coded bouquets have declined, floriography survives in Valentine’s roses, remembrance poppies, tattoos, jewelry, and artistic symbolism. Flowers remain a flexible bridge between nature and human emotion.