The Victorian Language of Flowers: apples and apple blossom

Victorians used the language of flowers to pass messages without words.

Photo R J Higginson via Wikimedia

Myth and legend surround the simple apple, the malus domestica, the earliest cultivated tree in Europe.

Early in history, the power of healing and magical rebirth was attributed to the apple, but more sinister myths abound. After all, Eve tempted Adam with an apple.  The wicked queen used a poisoned apple to send Snow White to sleep until wakened by a kiss.

For Victorians, then, the apple represented temptation, although apple blossom was considered altogether more positive and used to mean ‘preference.’

via wikimedia

Mrs Beeton, in her 1861 Book of Household Management, describes no fewer than 43 different recipes using apples, although she has little time for the fruit as nutrition, because “more than half of it consists of water.”

 

 

Filed under: flowers, language, Victorian Tagged: Frances Evesham, history, Victorian