A Victorian Flower Dictionary - Mandy Kirkby [30]
And sunflowers planting for their gilded show,
That scale the windows’ lattice ere they blow,
And, sweet to the habitants within the sheds,
Peep through the crystal panes their golden heads.
JOHN CLARE
Late in the nineteenth century the sunflower made an unexpected incursion into the world of advanced taste and fashion when it was adopted as an emblem for the Aesthetic Movement, a style of living based on the philosophy of ‘art for art’s sake’ and championed by Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley and others. As a result, the sunflower crept into popular design everywhere, a bold and unsentimental motif, often appearing in terracotta on Arts and Crafts buildings, on wrought-iron garden railings, and on household items such as wallpaper, tiles and ceramics.
But many thought the sunflower too gaudy and vulgar for the garden and its floral meaning perhaps just a little distasteful, so it was eventually consigned to the cottage garden or an out-of-the-way corner. The Aesthetes, too, suffered a backlash from those who thought its followers false and superficial. George du Maurier, a Punch magazine cartoonist, pilloried them incessantly.
In one of his cartoons from 1880, he shows a family of Aesthetes, the Cimabue Browns, who are paid a visit by ‘antiquated grandpapa (fresh from Ceylon)’. The room in which they sit contains all the familiar motifs of the Movement, including a Japanese screen and fan, and a tablecloth with an embroidered sunflower. Grandpapa wants to take the children to the zoo and the pantomime:
‘Thanks awfully, Grandpapa. But we prefer the National Gallery to the Zoological Gardens.’ Other child joins in: ‘Yes, Grandpapa. And we would sooner hear Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus, or Sebastian Bach’s glorious “Passion Music” than any pantomime, thank you!’
THISTLE
Misanthropy
There is very little that is inviting about the thistle: its leaves are coarse and prickly, so to brush against it is to risk a sharp wound, and to tread on it is a painful experience indeed. The pretty purple flowerhead does have a sweet fragrance, much loved by butterflies and bees, but it is guarded by a cup of fierce spikes. There is no doubt as to the thistle’s intention: stay away from me.
The reason for all this protection is clear: the plant wishes to discourage grazing animals from eating it. Allowed to grow freely, the thistle is hard to eradicate; if cut, it grows back stronger. When Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden, God said to Adam, ‘Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.’ It was a popular belief therefore that the thistle was a cursed plant and a gift from the Devil. Little wonder that it was given the emblem ‘misanthropy’.
from THE THISTLE’S GROWN ABOON THE ROSE
In Scotland grows a warlike flower,
Too rough to bloom in lady’s bower;
His crest, when high the soldier bears,
And spurs his courser on the spears.
O there it blossoms – there it blows
The thistle’s grown aboon the rose.
ALLAN CUNNINGHAM
Tough and durable, defiant against aggressors: the thistle embodied qualities that the Scots saw as their own, and the flower became their national emblem. There is a well-known legend of a Viking who stood on a thistle: his cry of pain alerted sleeping Scottish clansmen just in time to hold back the attack. The Order of the Thistle, a chivalric order founded by King James VII, has a famous motto: Nemo me impune lacessit, ‘No one harms me without punishment’, evoking the prickly aggressiveness of the