INTRODUCTION. 
•^ H . E L , a !l. guage of Flora has teen traced by its students to 
widely different sources, each presenting some true claim to 
the title yet none so entirely subverting those of others, as 
to stand forth alone as its originator; for truly the origin 
ot this voice of the flowers is coeval with their creation 
and is still a tongue sufficiently simple and attractive to 
have a charm tor every student of Nature, and to suggest 
appropriate emblems even to the illiterate rustic, who plucks 
the way side daisy, or the blue forget-me-not, to be presented 
to some village maiden as the readiest expression of his love 
i ?‘ ls ’i n truth > no creature of modern art, but the free-born 
child of unsophisticated nature. “ Lovely as the rose ” 
‘ * air as the lily,” “Modest as the violet,” are 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 
*i? ra i. ^ on S ue passing through the same progressive stages 
that have characterized the annals of every spoken language, 
in a rude and primitive state, the words are few and simple 
that suffice to clothe in language the thoughts and desires 
of an untutored race of man; 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 univer- 
sal language. “He cometh forth as a flower, and is cut 
down,” is the expressive and universally intelligible language 
( 3 ) 
