Floriography, by Gina Margolies — flowers

The twenty-first of December is the official onset of winter, but chilly temperatures have already descended on Birthday Blossoms Headquarters in New York City. This dip in the mercury magically inspires thoughts of snowflakes, hot cocoa, gingerbread, ice skating, and fluffy blankets. What it does not bring to mind is flowers. Except here at Birthday Blossoms, of course, where flowers are always foremost in our minds, even on the coldest, darkest day of the year. Blossoms popular in wintertime are poinsettia, paper whites, and other flowers typically grown in greenhouses. A perfect example is December’s birth month flower, the lovely...

Here at Birthday Blossoms, we love when birth month flowers pop up in unexpected places. We recently spotted November’s birth month flower on a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The current exhibition Lineages: Korean Art at the Met features pieces from The Met’s historical collection as well as loans of modern and contemporary Korean art. The blend of a backward glance with a forward vision spotlights much that is beautiful and interesting about Korean art. The gallery is quite small, and the pieces are close enough to whisper to one another, sharing themes,...

October's Birthday Blossom is the marigold. Scientifically referred to as tagetes, the common name marigold is derived from the words "Mary's Gold," as the flowers were called by early Christians who placed them around statues of the Virgin Mary, offering the blossoms in place of coins. Today, the marigold is a festival flower in many cultures. It is significant in Nepal, where marigold garlands are used during the Tihar festival. The marigold is also widely cultivated in India and Thailand, where large quantities of marigolds are used in garlands and decorations for weddings, festivals, and religious events. Whether celebrating your own...

October’s birth month flower is the marigold. This orange beauty is the flower of the herb calendula officinalis. Thanks to their sunny orange hues, marigolds are often used to brighten up a garden or a room. But those lovely petals have other gifts to offer. Marigolds possess natural astringent, antimicrobial, and anti-inflammatory properties, which means they can lend a helping hand in several ways. Marigold is an aid to healing skin wounds, rashes, bug bites, and, thanks to its antifungal properties, even athlete’s foot. Marigold doesn’t just brighten up the garden, it is a valuable tool in nature’s medicine cabinet.

If one were in search of a tool to ascertain the time, flowers likely would not come to mind. Clocks, watches, and smartphones are obvious, but flowers? Yes, flowers, thanks to Carl Linnaeus. Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist. He is generally known for formalizing the modern system of naming organisms, called binomial nomenclature. In his spare time, Linnaeus compiled a list of flowers that open and close their petals at a particular hour of the day. It is by this list that we may reckon the hours in flower time, using the aptly named Flora's Clock.