Vlll 
INTRODUCTION. 
phrases that seem to come naturally into use, without 
thought that in this emblematic employment lies the germ 
of true poetry and the symbolic language of Flora ; and 
though to these will be found added, in the present 
volume, many wherein the object seems less suggestive 
of the sense, and where the idea sought to be conveyed is 
more complex and difficult intelligently to symbolize, yet 
in this is only presented the floral tongue passing through 
the same progressive stages that have characterized the 
annals of every spoken language. In a rude and primi¬ 
tive state, the words are few and simple that suffice to 
clothe in language the thoughts and desires of an un¬ 
tutored race of men ; but with every increasing want, and 
every new desire, names and forms of thought must be 
created, until the brief vocabulary of the savage tribe 
swells into the complex dictionary of an intelligent and 
civilized people. And so has it been with this universal 
language. “He cometh forth as a flower and is cut 
down,” is the expressive and universally intelligible 
language of Scripture. And no less does it early pre¬ 
figure hope than frailty. We strew them over the shroud 
of departed love, and plant them to bloom brightly above 
the grave, that they may speak in spring of a brighter 
season of hope,—and in summer of that heavenly clime 
that knows only of an eternal summer and a cloudless sky, 
