Language of Flowers

About this collection

The Language of Flowers includes digital surrogates of 92 rare texts on the art of expressing emotions, sentiments and moral lessons through floral arrangements, all dating from the early 19th century through the 1950’s. Replete with exquisite, intricately detailed hand-colored plates, this collection provides a look into the history of the use of flowers in Western culture as well as popular perceptions of nature and society.

Historical context

The art of florigraphy first became popular in France in the early 1800s. Building on the floral dictionaries developed by their French predecessors, scholars, writers, and moralists of Victorian England and North America favored floral symbolism as a popular medium for expressing moralistic sentiments, while love-struck amateur poets often used the Language of Flowers to encode surreptitious messages of passion.

Using the collection

For questions about this collection, please contact mann-ref@cornell.edu.

More information

Collection steward

Michael Cook, Environmental Studies Curator

Metadata creation

Cornell University Library

Funding

Isabel Zucker '26 and Judith Zucker Clark '53

Credits

This collection overview was last reviewed in 2025.

Collection sources

• Individually cataloged items

Exhibits featuring items from this collection

• Written in Petals