A Victorian Flower Dictionary - Mandy Kirkby [5]
CANTERBURY BELLS
Constancy
Fair are the bells of this bright-flowering weed.
CONSTANCE NADEN
The name of the flower group to which this lovely plant belongs is Campanula, meaning ‘little bell’, referring to the shape of its striking blue or white flowers. It was given its common name from the bells the pilgrims carried as they made their weary way to Thomas à Becket’s shrine, and this connection with devotion has made it an emblem of faith and constancy, especially religious faith.
The plant can grow tall, its stems shooting up to two or three feet high, and when it blooms it is a glorious sight. From July to October it is covered from top to bottom with beautiful large flowers, and the Victorians put this abundance to good use by growing it in pots and garden borders for summer display. A few blooms plucked off and tucked into a lady’s hair would make for a simple decoration, or the potted plant presented to a curate’s wife an entirely appropriate gift.
A much-loved painting of the time was John Everett Millais’s A Huguenot on St Bartholomew’s Day, exhibited to great acclaim in 1852. The painting was inspired by a story from the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572, and shows a Catholic girl and her Protestant lover embracing in a garden. The girl is trying to bind a white cloth around his arm in order to identify him as Catholic, thus saving him from persecution. While his one hand tries to pull away the cloth, the other holds the head of his beloved. Growing prominently by their feet is a Canterbury bell, and ivy (‘fidelity’) trails up and along the wall behind them.
Millais often used the language of flowers in his paintings, and in The Blind Girl he called upon another bellflower, the pale blue, fragile harebell. A blind beggar girl has stopped by the roadside, waiting for a passing shower to clear; behind her is a double rainbow and in the grass by her hand a small clump of harebells. The expression on her face is one of patience and stoicism: the emblem for harebell is ‘resignation’.
Hope is like a harebell trembling from its birth,
Love is like a rose the joy of all the earth;
Faith is like a lily lifted high and white,
Love is like a lovely rose the world’s delight;
Harebells and sweet lilies show a thornless growth,
But the rose with all its thorns excels them both.
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
CARNATION
Pink – I Will Never Forget You Red – My Heart Breaks
White – Sweet and Lovely Yellow – Disdain
Striped – I Cannot Be with You
This delicate and modest flower, which blooms at the height of summer when the weather is kind and gentle, is from the family Dianthus, which also includes pinks (pure love) and Sweet Williams (gallantry). The carnation’s perfume is delicious and spicy, like the scent of cloves. It was originally a wild plant of southern Europe, introduced to England by the Normans, but the Victorians loved the cultivated flower, breeding more and more varieties in endless variants of colour and form.
The word carnation comes from the Latin caro, meaning ‘flesh’, and is a nod towards the delicate pink of its petals, but the name Dianthus derives from the Greek Dios, ‘of Zeus’, and anthos, meaning ‘flower’. Thus the name means Zeus’s flower. The carnation has always been associated with the higher things, with fine emotions and love and marriage. Many Renaissance paintings show betrothed couples holding a carnation.
A red carnation might be presented as a strong avowal of love; a white carnation placed on a lady’s breakfast tray would be an affectionate and tender gesture. It became the fashion to give buttonholes to gentlemen at dinner parties, tucked under the napkin or sent in on trays before everyone sat at table. Traditionally, the eldest daughter would help each guest to choose, perhaps the wonderfully scented ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ or