Unraveling The History Behind The Custom Of Giving Flowers

By Mark Scott

Down the ages, human emotions have found great expressions through the tradition of gifting flowers or bouquets. Flowers and bouquets have acted as excellent gifts for birthdays and anniversaries, and are also useful for making personal gestures like communicating warmest congratulations, expressing apologies or simply making someone happy.

It is believed that this custom has origins in prehistoric traditions whose evidence has been dug up by archaeologists at archaeological sites. Traditional Greek mythology, Chinese stories and history concerning the Romans and Egyptians all show that flowers had a very important part to play in their society. These ancient cultures considered giving flowers to be a great way of conveying one's thoughts and emotions. In fact, in ancient Greek legends, some flowers have even been bestowed with a divine status.

The practice of gifting flowers continued through the Middle Ages, with the French and the English keeping the custom strong. The modern tradition of giving a meaning to each flower is thought to have been brought to Europe after the French and the British experienced it in Turkey.

Flower gifting acquired much significance among the Victorians who widely indulged in this tradition. Victorians, as we know, never exhibited their feelings openly and thus the custom of gifting flowers or bouquets was regarded a great means to communicate emotions without making use of a lot of words.

This era saw the formulation of guidelines for gifting flowers or bouquets that we still follow. To take an example, buying a bouquet of red roses from a florist and presenting to your beloved upside down would surely vex her. This is because red roses which are mostly associated with emotions of love can communicate negative feelings when they are gifted to the recipient upside down. In fact, the'th century witnessed a lot of books written on the subject of language of flowers.

This custom continues even today, where people gift flowers to others to express their sentiments. Through gradual changes over the years, we have reached a stage where a lot of flowers now have some meaning and gifting flowers or bouquets has to be done according to certain rules and regulations. Giving a bouquet of red roses is considered to be an expression of love, whereas lilies are considered as symbolizing attractiveness and purity. A single marigold flower is regarded as an expression of grief, on the other hand friendship is best exhibited by a yellow coloured rose.

Science today has enabled us to grow countless varieties of flowers anywhere across the globe. Any good Singapore flower shop will offer a plethora of flower varieties that are both regional and exotic in nature, and are appropriate for communicating your intimate emotions in the classiest manner. - 33393

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