Unraveling The History Behind The Custom Of Giving Flowers

Posted by | Posted on 1:15 AM

By Paul Scott

Down the ages, human feelings have found great expressions through the custom of giving flowers or bouquets. People often step into a florist shop to buy flowers for all occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, to wish well to someone, to apologize, or just to lift one's drooping spirits.

It is believed that this custom has origins in prehistoric traditions whose conclusive proof has been dug up by excavators at excavation sites. History, myths and folklore dating back to ancient China, Greece, Rome and Egypt display flowers to be an undeniable part of social rituals. These ancient cultures considered gifting flowers to be a great means of communication of one's thoughts and feelings. In fact, in ancient Greek mythology, some flowers have even been given a divine status.

The Middle Ages saw a furtherance of this tradition, and France and England were mainly responsible for transferring this legacy down the ages. Today as we have given meaning to each flower, we are in fact continuing an old Turkish custom imported into Europe by the French and the British.

The custom of flower gifting reached new heights in the Victorian era. As overt expression of feelings was considered objectionable during the Victorian period, the genteel Victorians practised excellent restraint in language and they balanced this control over language by their gesture of presenting flowers to communicate feelings.

This era saw the rolling out of guidelines for giving flowers or bouquets that we still follow. For example, a bouquet of red roses bought from a florist would evoke a rather unfavourable reaction form your beloved if you presented it to her upside down. Red roses, that otherwise depict love, can depict anger if presented upside down. These ideas were so in fashion that in the'th century, many books on the language of flowers were published and extensively read.

This tradition has come down the centuries, and now people around the world participate in the act of gifting flowers to communicate their feelings. Today we have arrived at a point where meaning is attributed to a lot of flowers, and preset guidelines in this custom are more significant than they ever were. Giving a bouquet of red roses is believed to be an expression of love, whereas lilies are considered as symbolizing beauty and purity. A single marigold flower is considered to be an expression of sorrow, while friendship is best exhibited by a yellow coloured rose.

Science today has enabled us to grow all kinds of flowers anywhere in the world. Any good Singapore flower shop will offer a multitude of flower varieties that are both regional and imported in nature, and are suitable for communicating your heartfelt emotions in the classiest manner.

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