BOOK REVIEWS

The Language of Flowers

Catherine Lee
Published by Ryland, Peters & Small
Distributed by Southern Publishers Group
$NZ19.99

SINCE ancient times flowers, herbs and other plants have been used in symbolic ways to convey emotions and feelings. Assigning meanings to flowers became popular in Victorian times perhaps because of the taboos on open expression of feeling.

This small book by British sculptor Catherine Lee sets out to decode the language of flowers to enable the giver of flowers to make a choice based on the symbolism each evokes. For example polyanthus represents happiness, a lilac suggests the first stirring of love and orchids signify beauty.

Flowers are arranged in chapters according to their meanings and lines of poetry accompany the photographs.

Reproduced with permission from the former Weekend Gardener magazine. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the RNZIH