Know Your Birthday Flower. "Roman influence, 2000 years ago, lives to this day with Flores de Mayo."

                                   Know Your Birthday Flower 

 It was the Romans, more than two thousand years ago, who institutionalized the flower with their goddess, Flora, a name we used today. They held a Festival called Floralia in late April or early May, and two temples were built in her honor. Roman influence lives to this day with Flores de Mayo (Internet)

 Dr Abe V Rotor 

 Living with Nature Center

                                       San Vicente, Ilocos Sur                                    

Coed picks flowers of Kamantigi (Impatiens balsamina) at the former 

EcoSanctuary of St Paul University, QC; Garden Chart indicating birthday 

months and flowers. UST Botanical Garden, Manila 

January Birth Flower - the Carnation or Snowdrop

February Birth Flower - the Violet or Primrose

March Birth Flower - the Jonquil (aka Daffodil or Narcissus)

April Birth Flower - the Sweet pea or Daisy

May Birth Flower - the Lily of the Valley

June Birth Flower - the Rose

July Birth Flower - the Larkspur or Water Lily

August Birth Flower - the Gladiolus or Poppy

September Birth Flower - the Aster or Morning Glory

October Birth Flower - the Calendula (Marigold)

November Birth Flower - the Chrysanthemum

December Birth Flower - the Narcissus

Can you identify from these photographs the flower of your birth month?

1, 2

       3, 4

   5, 6 

 7, 8

 
 9, 10

 
 11, 12

13, 14
 15

 The Language of Flowers is a fine art of expressing affection, a tradition which started during the conservative Victorian era in England, as a matter of etiquette and social grace, when people then were inhibited to express their feelings openly. 

But it was the Romans, more than two thousand years ago, who institutionalized the flower with their goddess, Flora, a name we used today specially in the scientific circle. They held a Festival called Floralia in late April or early May, and two temples were built in her honor.  

Roman influence lives to this day with Flores de Mayo, a similar festival of merriment,  beauty contests and floral parades.  It is also in May young women offer flowers on the altar, a practice that has declined in modern times.     

The Language of Flowers has vastly expanded in today's liberated society, and has permeated into all walks of life in social gatherings and special events, or without any occasion in particular.  

Flowers, flowers, if you may, 

roses on Valentines Day; 

bouquet in June and May, 

and wreath on All Saints Day. 

                                            

- AVR 2013

Flowers are perhaps the ultimate symbol of loving and caring, of remembering and consoling, congratulating, atoning, forgiving, or simply greeting.  Flowers open The Secret Garden of Hodgson Burnett, bring repentance in The Black Narcissus, stirs nationalism in the Sampaguita Song. Petals bring fairy tale on the wedding aisle, heavenly accolade in floral confetti.  Above all it is the flower that silenced a thousand guns. 

The flower is the most imitated gift of Nature, never equaled, never surpassed  - and never.

Trivia:  What is the science specialized in the cultivation of flowers? 
Acknowledgment:  Internet 

1 Gladiolus
2 Gladiolus.

3. Aster

4. Narcissus

5 Cosmos

6 Daffodils

7 Chrysanthemum

8 Carnation

9 Violet

10 Pseudo Narcissus

11 Aster

12 Lily of the Valley

13 and 14. white and pink flowers of balibago

15 Chichirica

Trivia: Floriculture, a branch of Horticulture