12 
I NTR ODUC TION 
And is there any moral shut 
Within the bosom of the rose?” 
But he at once answers his own doubt by adding that 
“Any man that walks the mead, 
In bird, or blade, or bloom, may find— 
According as his humours lead— 
A meaning suited to his mind.” 
And such is the bounteous and varied supply of symbolic 
floral words with which nature decks even the less favoured of 
her shrines, that all her children have ever ready to use some 
requisite parts of that speech which is clearly universal. This 
love of florigraphy is plainly one of those natural touches which 
make all the world akin—one of those binding links whose 
origin we cannot detect, and whose effects only we can perceive. 
Here we may exclaim with Eliza Cook : 
“ Oh, could we but trace the great meaning of ALL, 
And what delicate links form the ponderous chain, 
From the dew-drops that rise, to the star-drops that fall. 
We should see but one purpose, and nothing in vain!" 
From the unlettered North American Indian to the highly- 
polished Parisian; from the days of dawning civilization among 
the mighty Asiatic races, whose very names are buried in 
oblivion, down to the present times, the symbolism of flowers 
is everywhere and in all ages discovered permeating all strata 
of society. It has been, and still is, the habit of many peoples 
to name the different portions of the years after the most pro¬ 
minent changes of the vegetable kingdom. Thus, amongst the 
American Indians, one period or season is known as the “bud¬ 
ding month,” which in due course is followed by the “flowering 
month,” which in its turn gives way to the “ fall of the leaf,” as 
these tribes poetically term their autumn. 
It has been truthfully remarked that the eloquence of flowers 
is not so generally understood in this country as it might be ; 
and although the most cultivated minds of the most polished 
nations are continually reiterating the valuable influence of 
floral beauty, and are constantly recurring to floral symbolism 
in order to expound their ideas, yet it is chiefly amongst those 
races which we are pleased to term rude and barbarous that we 
find the most delicate appreciation of floral ascendency. What 
more beautiful exposition of such a creed can be discovered 
