The Historical Background Behind The Tradition Of Gifting Flowers

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

Some people believe that this tradition began way back during prehistoric times with archaeologists finding its evidence at ancient sites. Ancient Greek mythology, Chinese stories and history surrounding the Romans and Egyptians all show that flowers had a very important role to play in their society. These ancient cultures considered giving flowers to be a great way of communication of one’s thoughts and emotions. The ancient Greeks even believed some flowers to be associated with divinity.

The Middle Ages saw a furtherance of this custom, and France and England were chiefly responsible for transferring this legacy down the ages. Today as we have given meaning to each flower, we are actually echoing an old Turkish custom imported into Europe by the French and the British.

The Victorian era spread this custom of flower gifting even further. Demonstrating emotions verbally and publicly was not considered as good manners during the Victorian era, and therefore people made use of subtle ways to express their feelings in the form of gifting flowers or bouquets.

The Victorians devised many rules for giving flowers or bouquets and implemented them with great zeal. To take an instance, buying a bouquet of red roses from a florist and presenting to your beloved upside down would surely vex her. Red roses, that otherwise symbolize love, can depict anger if gifted upside down. In fact, the 19th century saw several books published on the subject of language of flowers.

This custom has come down the ages, and now people around the world participate in the act of giving flowers to convey their emotions. Today we have reached a stage where meaning is attributed to many flowers, and preset guidelines in this tradition are more significant than they ever were. Gifting a bouquet of red roses is considered to be an expression of love, whereas lilies are considered as representing attractiveness and purity. A lone marigold flower is regarded as an expression of grief, whereas friendship is best expressed by a yellow coloured rose.

Science today has helped us to grow all kinds of flowers anywhere across the globe. Any good Singapore flower shop will offer a multitude of flower varieties that are both local and imported in nature, and are appropriate for communicating your intimate emotions in the most elegant manner.