All these were coded in manuals, all of which seem to have stemmed (mind the pun) from Les Langage des Fleurs, by Charlotte de Latour (a nom de plume), originally published in 1819. And like all languages, this one's got a grammar:
The first rule is to find a flower that appropriately expresses a thought, and it is enough to invert the flower to express the contrary: for example, a rosebud with its thorns and leaves intact means: I'm afraid, but I hope. If one wears the same rosebud in the reverse, this means: do not fear nor hope.Ouch. Likewise, a flower's placement on the body has much to say about its intended meaning. "The marigold, for example, placed on the head, means pain of mind; on the heart, broken heart; the breast, ennui."
The daisy signifies innocence. If you ask Louise Cortambert (the femme behind the nom) why this is the case, she will tell you that it's after the premature death of Celtic hero Oscar (codified by poet James MacPherson in The Poems of Ossian). Oscar, having died "before the disease of old age" could mar him, worked his heavenly powers to spread a new purple flower over the land, which his beloved, Malvina, cried upon and turned white. Thus was born the daisy.
There's a problem here in that the daisy appears nowhere in MacPherson's text. Thus—perhaps?—the U.S. translation of de Latour's book replaces this invented myth with one concerning Belides, "one of the nymphs called Dryads," who was turned into a daisy by the gods so as to escape an ardent suitor, thus retaining her innocence. But as any student of Greek myth can tell you, Belides is a name given not to a nymph, but to a group of fifty sisters betrothed to fifty brothers. The Belides. That this word is similar to Bellis, the daisy's genus, is convenient, but tells us nothing about why innocence is the meaning of the daisy.
And maybe there's nothing to tell. In The Legend of Good Women, Chaucer invented his own origin in writing that Queen Alcestis, another mythic figure, turned into a daisy upon giving herself to Death so that her husband might live. To the Greeks she merely died, but to Chaucer she transformed. But where does this myth get us? Alcestis' actions are more loyal or sacrificial than innocent.
The arbitrariness of these things. Maybe roses retain their sense of love and affection. But were I to call my local florist and get shipped your way a mess of daffodils, would you know I wanted you to return my love? Not without some giftshop guidebook you wouldn't. And yet it's clear that something has been said, something maybe otherwise unsayable. From that U.S. translation:
[N]o spoken word can approach ... the delicacy of sentiment to be inferred from a flower seasonably offered; [and] the softest impressions may be thus conveyed without offence, and even profound grief alleviated, at a moment when the most tuneful voice would grate harshly on the ear....It's much like patron saints. The lowest, chintziest way to appreciate them is through the thoroughness of their collective patronage. Loving that Dismas is the patron saint of undertakers and thieves is very far removed from loving Saint Dismas, who died guilty on a cross next to Jesus and asked to be remembered in heaven.
That the daisy means innocence means very little about the daisy. It's important to remember that innocence is not ignorance, that while the latter comes from the Latin not knowing, innocence means not harming. With ignorance, the implication is that one should know, or one ought to have taken the time to find out. We forgive the innocent their innocence. We humor them.
No chance of flower language ever being resurrected. That a jury might award daisies, Bachelor-like, to the acquitted!
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