Flowers are one of the greatest gifts to give or to receive. Since the beginning of time, they have been recognized as appropriate gifts for birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, or any other special occasion. Knowing the right flowers to gift to convey your feelings is an age-old way of letting the flowers do the talking for you.
January birth flowers are carnations and snowdrops. Anyone born during this month will have a particular liking for these two flowers. Let’s look at these two January flowers’ meaning, symbolism, and legends.
Carnation
Carnations are some of the oldest cultivated flowers. The name derives from the Greek word dianthus: Dios, which means divine, and anthos, the Greek word for flower.
The plant is easy to grow at home and produces long-lasting blooms that make excellent cut flowers.
Carnation Meaning
- The ruffled blooms of the carnations mean devotion, love, and loyalty. The bloom color adds to this basic meaning.
- Carnations are one of the only flowers that continue to thrive in the summer heat and winter cold, giving them the meaning of perseverance.
- The blooms mean genuineness, practicality, and loyalty. The love you have for your friends and family is matchless.
- Dark red blooms mean love and passion.
- Pale red means my heart aches for you.
- White carnations mean purity and good luck.
- Yellow carnations mean rejection and disappointment.
- Purple blooms mean impulsiveness or unpredictability.
Legend Of Carnations
- Christians believe that pink carnations grew from the tears of the Virgin Mary. This belief is how the pink carnation became a symbol of a mother’s undying love and made them an official flower for Mother’s Day.
- Victorians developed floriography, the language of flowers, and it all started with carnations. One of the persons responsible for creating floriography is Lady Mary Montagu, wife of the British Ambassador to Turkey. She describes a Turkish custom called ‘selam’, a flower language that harem women used for communication. Flower dictionaries in French and English soon followed and became the standard for assembling and decoding floral messages.
Snowdrops
The snowdrop is a perennial plant in the amaryllis family. It’s a small plant with multiple stems, and each stem produces one flower. Snowdrops bloom from mid-fall until late spring. The flowers look like tiny drops of milk hanging from a branch. When the flowers fall on the ground and are scattered everywhere, they resemble little snowflakes on the ground.
Photo by Kristine Cinate
Meaning Of Snowdrops
- The white blooms mean innocence and purity.
- Snowdrops mean re-birth since they are the first flowers to appear in spring.
- The white blooms mean sympathy and are ideal to give to someone going through a battle with sickness.
- The blooms mean hope since it’s the first flower to bloom in winter and lasts through most spring.
- It was also considered back luck to pick the flowers and use them inside the home during the Victorian era.
Photo by yoksel-zok
Legend of Snowdrops
- Moldovan legend tells of a fight between Lady Spring and Winter Witch. During the fight, Lady Spring cuts her finger. A drop of blood from the cut melted the snow, and a snowdrop flower grew. The pure white flower symbolised Lady Spring’s victory over the Winter Witch.
- Victorian legend says that if a snowdrop flower was seen, it was a sign of death and back luck. * It was believed that it negatively affected the quality of cow’s milk and discolored butter when you picked a snowdrop.
- Snowdrop flowers were granted the privilege of being the first plant to flower every year to announce the arrival of spring. However, the plant had to give up its bloom color in exchange for the privilege.
