Flowers (original) (raw)

In the early nineteenth century, an author who simply identifies herself as "a Lady" instructs American readers how to "make the most" of those short lived, withering "objects which surround us"-the queendom of flowers. First published in 1829, Flora's Dictionary becomes a phenomenal success. It is printed several times, culminating in the lavishly illustrated 1855 edition, a beautiful gift book featuring mixed bouquets with flowers of all colors and shapes. In the accompanying explanations, readers learn that yellow acacias convey a concealed love, that jasmine breathes elegance, and that zinnias announce absence. They are also informed that the author's name is Elizabeth Washington Gamble Wirt. As she proudly claims in the preface, she has written the book for the sole purpose of entertaining her family (she is a mother of ten). Yet for the nineteenth-century "true woman," entertainment is also thoroughly educational: listing more than 200 flowers, Flora's Dictionary acknowledges the value of botanical categorization while sharing the common admiration of a blooming earth. The actual impetus for the book, however, is a patriotic, transcendentalist longing for "something sacred" to take root in American conversations (Gamble 16). Arranged in the strict alphabetical order of an encyclopedia, Flora's Dictionary draws on Middle Eastern and Asian symbol ism, scours through British poetry, fantasizes about the popular names of flowers and their botanical definitions, alludes to their scent, look, and medical virtue-all to build associations that aim at replacing "those awkward and delicate declarations" of American men with something reminiscent of the "mute eloquence of the eastern lover" (Gamble 16).