Typical Bouquets 
HE editor of a well-arranged language of flowers, chiefly 
I translated from the French, tells us that in the East a 
bouquet of token-flowers, “ ingeniously selected and put to¬ 
gether for the purpose of communicating in secret and expres¬ 
sive language the sentiments of the heart, is called a salaam, 
or salutation.Written love-letters would ofteri be 
inadequate to convey an idea of the feelings which are thus 
expressed through the medium of flowers. Thus orange- 
blossoms signify hope ; marygolds, despair; sunflowers, con¬ 
stancy ; roses, beauty ; and tulips represent the complaints of 
infidelity. This hieroglyphic language is known only to the 
lover and his mistress. In order to envelope it more com¬ 
pletely in the veil of secrecy, the significations of the different 
flowers are changed in conformity with a preconcerted plan : 
for example, the rose is employed to express the idea which 
would otherwise be attached to the amaranth ; the carnation 
is substituted for the pomegranate-blossom, and so on.” 
The Chinese and Persian ladies have much of that taste 
and love of beauty and elegance which belong especially to 
Oriental nations, and signify their love, friendship, anger, dis¬ 
dain, and other feelings by various blossoms formed into bou¬ 
quets ; and to them the flowers convey a language of their 
own. We are told that in Persia, for instance, the tulip, whose 
blossom in its native country is scarlet, while the centre of its 
glowing cup is black, is used to express warm affection, and, 
when sent by a lover, will convey to the object of his attach¬ 
ment the idea that, like this flower, his face is warm, and his 
heart consumed as a coal. 
The gradual progress of affection is expressed by the gift of 
a rose in its various developments, from the small rosebud to 
the fully expanded blossom; and despair is signified by the 
