INTRODUCTION. 
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TnE Language of Flora has been traced by its students to widely different 
sources, each presenting some true claim to the title, yet none so entirely sub- 
veiting those of others, as to stand forth alone as its originator; for truly the 
origin of this voice of the flowers is coeval with their creation, and is still a 
tounge sufficiently simple and attractive to have a charm for 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. 
It is, in truth, no creature of modern art, but the free-born child of unsophisti¬ 
cated nature. “ Lovely as the rose,” “ Fair as the lily,” or “ 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 lan¬ 
guage 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 pro¬ 
gressive 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 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 com¬ 
plex 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 prefigure 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, and 
in all seasons, of love, and purity, and peace. To these, the simple expressions 
of natural feeling, have been added from time to time, from the pages of classic 
poetry and the more complex fancies of later writers, a series of ideas attached 
to every flower, by means of which the nosegay may be made to take the place 
of more formal epistles. 
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