Calla Lily

Since the days of ancient Rome the Calla Lily has been treasured as a flower of celebration. First cherished as a celebration of light, then a funeral flower, in today’s world the Calla Lily has become one of the most desired flowers brides use to celebrate their wedding day. It is associated with the lily as a symbol of purity and as such, these spectacular flowers are beginning to rival the rose in popularity for bridal bouquets. The Calla Lily, originally from the continent of Africa, is rich with history, and it is an elegant and colorful flower to enjoy on any occasion. Either as a cut flower, or in your garden, the Calla Lily’s bloom is a show-stopper, and its wide range of colors make it a special flower to enjoy.

Iris

Name
The name iris comes directly from the Greek goddess Iris, a messenger of the god’s. She was the goddess of the rainbow and traveled on the rainbow’s arc carrying messages and commands from the gods to humans. The goddess’s connection to the rainbow recalls the variety of colors that irises come in.
Because of Iris’s relationship to the rainbow she became symbolic of bridges and was seen a connection to the other world. As such, the Greek’s still plant irises on graves and they are often used in funeral arrangements.

Dahlia

Dahlia
An herbal document written in Latin just sixty years after the coming of Columbus was discovered 1929. It noted that the Aztecs used dahlias as a treatment for epilepsy. The Aztec culture in Mexico was quite advanced [see chocolatemonthclub.com] but its wealth of written records did not survive the introduction of Christianity. The Aztec Herbal is an astonishing and remarkable resource for botanists and those studying the history of Medicine.
Dahlias were late in coming to Europe. European scientific specialists considered the dahlia as a possible source of food since a disease had destroyed the French potato crop in the 1840s. But the beauty of the dahlia far surpassed its taste.

Orchid

Orchid originates from Greece, where orchis, means testicle. Some orchids are called ladies' fingers, ladies' tresses, or long purples. Greek women thought that if the father of their unborn child ate large, new tubers, the baby would be a boy. If the mother ate small tubers, they would give birth to a baby girl.
Most of us regard the orchid as a beautiful, exotic and romantic flower. Most are also unaware of their spectacular history and the passionate efforts which have gone into finding, cataloguing and creating the orchids which we enjoy today.
A register of orchids is held at the Royal Horticultural Society in London. The Vanilla orchid was the first to enter Europe back in 1510.

Sunflower

Sunflower
These flowers always turn towards the sun. They originated in Central and South America, and were grown for their usefulness, not their beauty. In 1532 Francisco Pizarro reported seeing the natives of the Inca Empire in Peru worshipping a giant sunflower. Incan priestesses wore large sunflower disks made of gold on their garments.
Sunflowers represented different meanings in many cultures. In China they symbolized longevity. In the Andes Mountains, golden images of sunflowers were found in temples. And North America Indians in the prairies placed bowls of sunflower seeds on the graves of their dead.

Tulip

Tulip
Over a thousand years ago, Tulips grew wild in Persia, and near Kabul the Great Mogul Baber counted thirty-three different species. The word tulip is thought to be a corruption of the Turkish word for turbans. Persian poets sang its praises, and their artists drew and painted it so often, that all of Europe considered the tulip to be the symbol of the Ottoman Empire.
There are people in the world who eat some varieties tulip bulbs, and Japan makes a flour from them. The Dutch have eaten tulip bulbs when no other food was available.
Wealthy people began to purchase tulip bulbs that were brought back from Turkey by Venetian merchants.

Violet

Violet
When Napoleon married Josephine, she wore violets, and on each anniversary Josephine received a bouquet of violets. Following Napoleon’s lead, the French Bonapartists chose the violet as their emblem, and nicknamed Napoleon "Corporal Violet". In 1814, Napoleon asked to visit Josephine's tomb before being exiled to the Island of St. Helena. When he died, he wore a locket around his neck that contained violets he had picked from Josephine’s gravesite.
The Greek word for violet is io. Io is a character in Greek mythology and the daughter of King Argos. Zeus loved her. However, Zeus was concerned that Hera would discover their ilicit affair, so he turned Io into a heifer and then created the sweet-scented flowers that we now know as violets for her to eat while in her heifer form.

Lily

The lily was dedicated to the goddess Hera, the wife of Zeus. Legend has it that when Zeus fathered Hercules with the mortal woman Alceme, he wished his son to partake more fully of divinity. To this end he had the baby brought to Hera after he drugged her to sleep. He had the baby placed at her breast and Hercules nursed. Hera awoke in horrified surprise and flung the baby from her. Some of her milk gushed across the heavens and formed the milky way. A few drops fell to earth and from those drops sprang the first lilies.

Rose

The name is derived from the Latin rosa and the Creek rhodon. Cloris, goddess of flowers, crowned the rose as queen of the flowers. Aphrodite presented a rose to her son Eros, god of love. The rose became a symbol of love and desire. Eros gave the rose to Harpocrates, the god of silence, to induce him not to gossip about his mother's amorous indiscretions. Thus the rose also became the emblem of silence and secrecy. In the middle ages a rose was suspended from the ceiling of a council chamber, pledging all present to secrecy,or sub rosa,"under the rose".
The first historical testimony we have of the rose dates back to ancient Mesopotamia, Sargon I, King of the Akkadians (2684-2630 B.C.) brought to UR "vines, figs and rose trees" on his way back from a military expedition beyond the River Tigris.

Flowers

Scientists say there are over 270,000 species of flowers that have been documented and are living in the 21st Century. But scientists have yet to answer basic questions about these marvels of beauty... What led to their amazing diversity? Are there flowers that have not changed much during the evolution of this planet?
The first plant fossils found were woody magnolia-like plants dating back 93 million years. Paleobotanists have more recently uncovered tiny herb-like flower fossils dating back 120 million years. Flowering plants, called angiosperms by scientists, were believed to be already diverse and found in most locations by the middle of the Cretaceous period… 146 million years ago.