Glossa Hortensia

GLOSSA HORTENSIA

What is this?

Glossa Hortensia is an online, in-depth encyclopaedia of floriography, better known as the language of flowers.

Rising to prominence in Western Europe and colonial European North America in the 19th century (the 1800s), floriography - from the Latin flora, meaning 'flower', and -graphy, meaning 'writing': 'flower-writing' - encoded different flowers with specific meanings, often drawn from famous poetry, ancient religions, and other pre-existing cultural symbolism such as folk tales, songs, or borrowing from 'exotic' cultures.

Over the century (and continuing today) many hundreds of books were likely published on the topic in all different languages, offering dictionaries of this flower-language for such varied purposes as sending secret messages to a lover, illustrating a memorial or invite for a special occasion, or even letter-for-letter ciphers and phonetic alphabets illustrated with flowers. While many of these books were intended as gifts or tokens for light entertainment, contemporary scholars such as Dr Brent Elliott of the Lindley Library and the late Beverly Seaton (may she rest in peace) have dedicated extensive work to examining their importance as manifestations of cultural movements of the time, including, but far from limited to, Orientalism, the growing push for women's education, the gradual secularisation of society, and the English Arts and Crafts movement which would later yield Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and the folk revival movements of the 20th century.

While much of this trend has been forgotten, there remains a fascination with floriography for contemporary audiences. This encyclopaedia aims to provide an academic-level lens on the language of flowers, building on other scholars' work, and creating a repository of botanical and cultural resources to inform a contemporary reader. In each entry, I go back to the source of the emblem and sentiment applied to it, confirm its botanical identity, provide the texts as they appear in the original works, and chase these back to their origins in poetry, myth, religion, and culture of the time.

This blog will provide updates as I add them to the main glossa.

Who are you?

I am Nev, an Australian writer, artist and gardener in my 30s. While I have a background in academia, I am no longer engaged in it professionally - I do this because I am driven to. Nonetheless, I hope one day I can publish this as a book, or transition it into a masters by research.

Why?

Frustration. I got sick of being unable to find the information I wanted in this sphere without wading through lies, ads for health supplements, and paywalls. All these texts are public domain; I am just doing the archival and the research. Some things we are driven to do.

Strawberry I: Bonté Parfaite

In the language of flowers, strawberries are the symbol of perfect goodness - but its their scent that got them to the top of Francis Bacon's tier list.

STRAWBERRY Genus Fragaria L. (1753) especially Fragaria vesca L. (1753). Period Breton (brezhoneg): bod-sivi m. Period English: strawberry. Period French: fraisier m. F. vesca: fraisier des Alpes m. (‘Alpine strawberry’); fraisier des bois m. (‘woodland strawberry’); fraisier comestible m. (‘edible strawberry’); fraisier des quatre saisons m. (‘four-season strawberry’). Period German: Erdbeere f. F. elatior: Garten-Erdbeere f. (‘garden strawberry’). F. vesca: Wald-Erdbeere f. (‘forest strawberry’). F. vesca ‘semperflorens’: Monaths-Erdbeere f. (‘monthly strawberry’); Alpen-Erdbeere f. (‘alpine strawberry’).

Sentiments: Bonté parfaite (‘perfect goodness’) Perfect goodness Vollkommene Güte (‘perfect goodness’) Perfection Perfect excellence Wild strawberry: Perfection Flower: Parfum Foresight Wann werde ich dich wiederſehen? (‘When will I see you again?’) Leaves: Perfection

Bonté parfaite

From their earliest appearances in the language of flowers, strawberries are made the symbol of perfection. It’s not hard for contemporary readers to appreciate why: these little plants have such sweet fruits, pretty flowers, and attractive, lush foliage that they are widely admired still, a staple treat, and easy to grow, even in a window box.

But their very first appearance, in B. Delachénaye’s 1811 Abécédaire de Flore, gives them a different meaning, and one that suggests another path to their assigned sentiment which echoes through the subsequent entries:

Beech signifies 'treason'. Laurel leaves signify 'peace assured'. A cherry flower signifies ‘Don’t forget me’. A strawberry flower signifies ‘perfume’.

Parfum

Although Delachénaye is the only writer I have so far found to set this sentiment centre-stage, many other floriography authors make mention of the strawberry’s scent. The grandmother of floriography, Louise Cortambert, writing under the pseudonym Charlotte de Latour in her 1819 Le Language des Fleurs, mentioned in her entry for strawberry, ‘des troupes de jeunes filles qui s’avancent vers lui avec des corbeilles de fraises parfumées’, a group of young girls advancing towards him with baskets of fragrant strawberries. Our earliest English source, Henry Phillips, likewise writes in his 1825 Floral Emblems:

And strawberries do smell delicious, so there is little contention there. The sweet scent of the berry is suggested in the very name, in Linnaeus’ Latin Fragaria as in Ancient Latin frāgum, although the root for both appears to have a different origin to fragrō, to emit smell, in actuality. But like all good wordplay, the truth is reflected in the homonym, and thus it persists.

It was coming to one of my auxiliary sources, The Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare by Henry Nicholson Ellacombe, published 1878 - although I believe he published much of its content elsewhere beforehand - that the picture grew more complex. Ellacombe was a Shakespearean scholar and a gardener, and seems to have taken after his father, who was a folklorist. In this book, Ellacombe pores over Shakespeare’s corpus and extracts every mention of a plant, marrying it with Early Modern studies of his day; when floriography writers so loosely quote Shakespeare, it proved helpful to have a Victorian to pin each down as he does to Phillips’ reference, which he pins at Henry V, 1.1.60.

Of the strawberry, he notes:

The Strawberry is among fruits what the Primrose and Snowdrop are among flowers, the harbinger of other good fruits to follow. It is the earliest of the summer fruits, and there is no need to dwell on its delicate, sweet-scented freshness, so acceptable to all; but it has also a charm in autumn, known, however, but to few, and sometimes said to be only discernible by few.

Continue reading about the scent of strawberry leaves, Francis Bacon, Edmund Spenser and more this week on the Glossa Hortensia Substack.

Tamarisk I: The Highest Prize for Wickedness

In the Victorian language of flowers, the tamarisk becomes a symbol of 'crime' - but these tenacious trees of the desert and coastline cast their shadows on the ancient world too.

TAMARISK Genus Tamarix L. (1753). Period English: tamarisk. Period French: tamaris m.; tamarise m. Period German: Tamariske f. Ancient Greek: μυρίκη f. (myrikē). Ancient Hebrew: אֶ֖שֶׁל m. (/ʔaʃl/, /ʔiʃl/, eshel). Ancient Latin: myrīcē f., sometimes rendered myrica, now applied to the genus Myrica, bog myrtles.

Sentiments: Crime

— Phillips, Henry. Floral Emblems. London: Saunders and Otley (1825) p.102.

A Wreath of Tamarisk

The sentiment of crime associated with the tamarisk appear to stem from a passage in Diodoros of Sicily's 70s BCE Bibliothēkē Historikē, Historical Library, Book 12, concerning the lawgiver Charondas of Catania in Sicily, whose laws spread from Catania across Rhegium (modern day Reggio Calabria) in around the 5th or 6th centuries BCE until they were abolished by Anaxilas, tyrant of Rhegium from 494 BCE to 476 BCE.

The passage, at 12.12.2, reads as follows, in the Greek with following translation by Charles Henry Oldfather:

12.12.2. τοὺς δ᾽ ἐπὶ συκοφαντίᾳ καταγνωσθέντας προσέταξε περιπατεῖν ἐστεφανωμένους μυρίκῃ, ὅπως ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς πολίταις φαίνωνταιτὸ πρωτεῖον τῆς πονηρίας περιπεποιημένοι. διὸ καί τινας ἐπὶ τούτῳ τῷ ἐγκλήματι καταδικασθέντας τὸ μέγεθος τῆς ὕβρεωςοὐκ ἐνεγκόντας ἑκουσίως ἑαυτοὺς ἐκ τοῦζῆν μεταστῆσαι. οὗ συντελεσθέντος ἐφυγαδεύθη πᾶς ἐκ τῆς πόλεως ὁσυκοφαντεῖν εἰωθώς, καὶ τὸ πολίτευμα μακάριον εἶχε βίον τῆς τοιαύτης κακίας ἀπηλλαγμένον.

12.12.2. Men who had been found guilty of false accusation should, he decreed, wear wherever they went a wreath of tamarisk, in order that they might show to all their fellow citizens that they had won the highest prize for wickedness. As a consequence certain men who had been judged guilty of this charge, being unable to bear their great disgrace, voluntarily removed themselves from life. When this took place, every man who had made a practice of false accusation was banished from the city, and the government enjoyed a blessed life of freedom from this evil.

It is not clear to me, running searches of other ancient Greek and Latin texts through sources such as Topostext and Pereseus, how this relatively obscure passage entered the Victorian Classics canon over, say, the Biblical sources ventured into below (though granted, if they worked off the King James Version, which they so often do, the word 'tamarisk' was not mentioned there).

There are plentiful references to tamarisks in other Ancient Greek texts, but seemingly none that refer back to this Charondas' usage. Being common to the arid lands of Egypt and further into Africa, but less so in the Mediterranean Basin, there is a running association with tamarisks and a leanness of resources (and by extension, morals or reward) within extant Ancient Greek writings, but no specific link to crime.

Henry Watson Fowler and Francis George Fowler's translation of Lucian's diatribe Remarks Addressed to an Illiterate Book-fancier, at Luc. Ind. 3 appears to refer to this:

[3] [...] And how should that be? perhaps, like Hesiod, you received a laurel-branch from the Muses? As to that, I doubt whether you have so much as heard of Helicon, the reputed haunt of those Goddesses; your youthful pursuits were not those of a Hesiod; take not the Muses' names in vain. They might not have any scruples about appearing to a hardy, hairy, sunburnt shepherd: but as for coming near such a one as you (you will excuse my particularizing further just now, when I appeal to you in the name of the Goddess of Lebanon?) they would scorn the thought; instead of laurel, you would have tamarisk and mallow-leaves about your back [i.e. you will be whipped with them]; the waters of Olmeum and Hippocrene are for thirsty sheep and stainless shepherds, they must not be polluted by unclean lips.

However, a review of the Ancient Greek provided by Austin Morris Harmon shows the word used is μυρρίνῃ, myrrhinē,4 referring to the myrtle, not μυρίκη, myrikē, ‘tamarisk’. This would flow via the ‘Goddess of Lebanon’, potentially referring to a cult of Aphrodite - the myrtle is her sacred plant.

Read more on the tamarisk in the language of flowers, and in the Tanakh, this week on the Glossa Hortensia Substack.

Mad Honey III: Madness, and unwonted reverie (Rhododendron)

A final investigation into the contemporary science behind 'mad honey', and its current status as a novelty, an alternative health product, and a way to skirt pharmaceutical regulations.

This is Part III of a three-part series. For the first two installments, covering Ancient Greek and Roman accounts of ‘mad honey’ and the language of flowers meaning of the rhododendron, and the Orientalist interest in ‘mad honey’, see Part I and Part II.

Some Account of the Poisonous and Injurious Honey of North America

On July 18, 1794, Benjamin Smith Barton, MD read his lecture, Some Account of the Poisonous and Injurious Honey of North America, to the American Philosophical Society, who would go on to publish it in 1802. While still heavily anecdotal, this paper is a round-up of what was then known about toxic honey in North America, ending in a plea for further research into the subject.

Barton’s anecdotes are interesting fragments of their time. He points to kalmia-poisoned horses in part causing the British’s catastrophic loss at the Battle of the Monongahela, a pivotal defeat in the broader war between the British and French (and their respective Indigenous allies) in North America in the 1750s. In another anecdote, which I have seen widely repeated in ‘mad honey’ writings online, he recounts the story of Pennsylvanian beekeepers who fed their bees on fields of sheep laurel, Kalmia angustifolia, only to find their harvest toxic and, in an attempt to salvage it, made it into mead (metheglin, a colonial American English version of the Welsh meddyglyn, and likely referring to any spiced or flavoured mead). Although people love to refer to this, they often leave out the final note - that the mead was still toxic, and the endeavour was forced to move on as a result.

He talks about many types of honey, including honey ‘red like blood’ reported by James Bruce in Dixan, Abyssinia (which I gather is now Digsa, in the contemporary Eritrea), white honey from the Swedish island Öland reported by Carl Linnaeus, and grey honeycombs with ‘sharp and black’ honey seen by José de Acosta at Charcas, now Bolivia. You cannot tell a honey’s toxicity just by looking at it, Barton observes, and while some of these honeys are dark red as the ‘mad honey’ is often reported being, or myriad other colours, none of these are reliably toxic. Barton goes on at p.55:

Whilst I resided in Edinburgh, I had the honey from the Highlands frequently brought to my table. I often remarked that this honey had a dirty brownish colour, and I was told that it was chiefly procured from the different species of erica, perhaps principally from the “blooming hather,” which abound in the Highlands. I never heard the people in Edinburgh, although they consume large quantities of this honey, complain that it possesses any noxious property. If it were actively poisonous, or injurious, the quality would have been, long since, observed. I well remember, however, that, for two years that I used it, it almost always rendered me drowsy. Sometimes, indeed, it composed me to sleep as effectually as a moderate dose of laudanum would have done. A foreigner, who had not been accustomed to eat anodyne honey, was better capable of remarking the effect which I have mentioned than the natives, who had been in the habit of using it, from their infancy. I do not find that this singular property of the Scots honey has been noticed by any writer. I have, therefore, related it, though it rather opposes any objection to the signs employed by our hunters to distinguish poisonous from innocent honey. But he who is studious of the truth, should relate useful facts, as they are, without regarding what is their connection with a favourite system, or opinion.

To Barton, the blame for toxic honey in America is clearly pinned on a handful of species: Kalmia angustifolia, the aforementioned sheep laurel; Kalmia latifolia, mountain laurel; Kalmia hirsuta, hairy mountain laurel; Azalea nudiflora, now Rhododendron periclymenoides, the pinxterbloom azalea; and Andromeda mariana, now Lyonia mariana, known as staggerbush. For toxic honey reports outside of America, he points instead to alternative culprits: Rhododendrons, including R. maximum, the American rosebay, R. ferrugineum, the alpenrose, R. aureum (to him R. crysanthum), the yellow-flowered rosebay, and R. luteum (his Azalea pontica), the yellow azalea and the subject of Tournefort and Lamberti’s commentary in the centuries before (though often confused with R. ponticum, the purple-flowered Pontic rhododendron, which also abounds in the territory); and Datura stramonium, also called jimsonweed, thornapple or devil’s trumpet, which we will certainly revisit another day.

Of these Rhododendron, Kalmia, Andromeda and Azalea species, Barton observes a curious similarity:

The footstalks of the leaves, and also the seeds, of our rhododendron maximum are covered with the same brown powder as I observed covered the leaf-footstalks and the seeds of several of the andromedæ, and the kalmiæ. This powder in the rhododendron, as well as in the andromedæ and kalmiæ, excites sneezing, and it is curious to observe that a sneezing is mentioned by Dioscorides among the symptoms produced by the honey about Heraclea Pontica.

And yet he missed the true connection, which would follow him in the years to come. All of these flowers, including the ‘blooming hather’ of his Edinburgh sojourns, are now placed in the family Ericaceae, the heather family, and all of them produce the toxin that brings us ‘mad honey’: grayanotoxins.

Read on to buzz pollination, grayanotoxin poisoning, botulism, and influencer spruiking of unregulated 'mad honey' products on my Substack, Glossa Hortensia.