Floriography, by Gina Margolies — New York Botanical Garden

Welcome Spring (finally)  Spring has, finally, sprung here at Birthday Blossoms HQ. After an unusually cold and snowy winter which outstayed its welcome, New York City has greeted warmer temperatures with open arms. The annual explosion of flowers and greenery in the parks that dot the cityscape, the trees that line the streets, and the flower boxes that adorn brownstone windows has commenced.  In honor of the long-awaited spring weather, I did what I do every spring. I pulled up an image of Primavera, the painting by Sandro Botticelli, on my computer screen at work. (The real thing resides at the...

"People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things around us."                                                                       - Iris Murdoch  

Why do people like flowers so much? Here at Floriography, we often ponder thisquestion. Previous posts have explored various reasons: reminder of the renewal of life,innate desire for beauty, natural attraction to floral scents. We even analyzed themathematics of flowers in an effort to understand the appeal. (Believe it or not, that postis our most popular to date.) Another possible explanation for the perennial appeal offlowers is color. The word color has multiple meanings. In the natural world, color is the property ofproducing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way the object reflects oremits light. Science...

October’s birth month flower is the festive Marigold. This Birthday Blossom is bright, cheerful and talented. Scientifically referred to as tagetes, the common name marigold is derived from the words “Mary’s Gold,” as the marigold was called by early Christians who placed the flowers around statues of Mary, offering the blossoms in place of coins. Today, the marigold is a festival flower in many cultures. It is significant in Nepal, where marigold garlands are used almost in every household, especially during the Tihar festival. The marigold is also widely cultivated in India and Thailand, where large quantities of marigolds are...

The Language of Flowers Flora Illustrata:  Great Works from the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of The New York Botanical Garden edited by Susan M. Fraser and Vanessa Bezemer Sellers                Si hortum in bibliotheca habes, deerit nihil.                (If you have a garden in a library, nothing will be lacking).                                                                            ...