Valentine’s Day Flowers
The tradition of giving flowers on Valentine’s Day started in the late seventeenth century. Roses became the flower of choice because it was reputed to be the favourite flower of the Goddess Venus - the Goddess of Love.
Valentine’s Day colors are typically red but white and pink are also very popular. Red is the symbol of passion, while white is the symbol of purity. Pink is often favoured by the young as an alternative to red.
A single red rose is a very romantic gesture and is sometimes called a ’signature rose.’ These are often presented in an attractive red or black box with silk lining.
There are a number of rose varieties to choose from for their size, colour and fragrance. For example:
Freedom Rose:
The number one red rose from Colombia and also available from Holland, Freedom is a relativley new varietey but its size and shape of flower, the colour and the vase life all make it hard to beat. Freedom is quite simply a supurb rose and with its tulip shaped blooms makes an impressive and cost effective bunch any woman would be impressed to receive.
(Colombian Freedom red roses are also available from Fairtrade suppliers.)
Grand Prix Rose:
A classic red rose from Holland, Grand Prix is still a very popular choice with its many velvety red petals and open cup shaped bloom; this rose makes a good shaped handtied bouquet although the flower heads are generally not as big as the Columbian Freedom and do not last as long.
Baccara:
One of the darkest red, (almost black,) roses around. Baccara roses come from Columbia and have a long vase life and attractive velvet texture to the petals. A truly romantic rose.
(Colombian Baccara red roses are also available from Fairtrade suppliers.)
Alternatives to Roses
The price for other flower varieties tend not to be as inflated as roses at Valentines. This year, why not try stunning red amaryllis which are becoming a popular Valentine’s Day alternative to the rose, not just because of its deep red colour and shear glamour but because it is different.
The Origins of Valentine’s Day
Although there are a number of theories to the origins of Valentine’s Day, the most commonly believed dates back to the 5th Century Rome when The Catholic Church attempted to Christianise a pagan fertility ritual
Every year the Romans engaged in an annual young man’s rite of passage to the Roman god Lupercus. The names of teenage women were placed in a box and drawn at random by adolescent men. The woman was then assigned to the man as a companion (often sexual) for a year. The Catholic Church sought a “lovers” saint to replace the deity Lupercus in an attempt to put an end to this ritual.
In Rome in A.D. 270, Valentine had enraged the mad emperor Claudius II, who had issued an edict forbidding marriage. Claudius felt that married men made poor soldiers, because they were reluctant to leave their families for battle. The empire needed soldiers, so Claudius, never one to fear unpopularity, abolished marriage.
Valentine, bishop of Interamna, invited young lovers to come to him in secret, where he joined them in the sacrament of matrimony. Claudius learned of this "friend of lovers," and had the bishop brought to the palace. The emperor, impressed with the young priest's dignity and conviction, attempted to convert him to the Roman gods, to save him from otherwise certain execution. Valentine refused to renounce Christianity and imprudently attempted to convert the emperor. On February 24, 270, Valentine was clubbed, stoned and then beheaded.
History also claims that while Valentine was in prison awaiting execution, he fell in love with the blind daughter of the jailer, Asterius. Through his unswerving faith, he miraculously restored her sight. He signed a farewell message to her "From Your Valentine," a phrase that would live long after its author died.
To The Catholic Church, Valentine seemed to be the ideal candidate to usurp the popularity of Lupercus. So in A.D. 496, a stern Pope Gelasius outlawed the mid-February Lupercian festival. But he was clever enough to retain the lottery, aware of Romans' love for games of chance. Now into the box that had once held the names of available and willing single women were placed the names of saints. Both men and women extracted slips of paper, and in the ensuing year they were expected to emulate the life of the saint whose name they had drawn. Admittedly, it was a different game, with different incentives; to expect a woman and draw a saint must have disappointed many a Roman male. The spiritual overseer of the entire affair was its patron saint, Valentine. With reluctance, and the passage of time, more and more Romans relinquished their pagan festival and replaced it with the Church's holy day.
Valentine Cards and Gifts
Traditionally, mid-February was a Roman time to meet and court prospective mates. Roman young men offered women they admired and wished to court handwritten greetings of affection on February 14. The cards acquired St. Valentine's name.
As Christianity spread, so did the Valentine's Day card. The earliest extant card was sent in 1415 by Charles, duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London. It is now in the British Museum.
In the sixteenth century, St. Francis de Sales, bishop of Geneva, attempted to expunge the custom of cards and reinstate the lottery of saints' names. He felt that Christians had become wayward and needed models to emulate. However, this lottery was less successful and shorter-lived than Pope Gelasius's. And rather than disappearing, cards proliferated and became more decorative. Cupid, the naked cherub armed with arrows dipped in love potion, became a popular valentine image. He was associated with the holiday because in Roman mythology he is the son of Venus, goddess of love and beauty.
By the seventeenth century, handmade cards were oversized and elaborate, while store-bought ones were smaller and costly. In 1797, a British publisher issued "The Young Man's Valentine Writer," which contained scores of suggested sentimental verses for the young lover unable to compose his own. Printers had already begun producing a limited number of cards with verses and sketches, called "mechanical valentines," and a reduction in postal rates in the next century ushered in the less personal but easier practice of mailing valentines. That, in turn, made it possible for the first time to exchange cards anonymously, which is taken as the reason for the sudden appearance of racy verse in an era otherwise prudishly Victorian. The burgeoning number of obscene valentines caused several countries to ban the practice of exchanging cards. In Chicago, for instance, late in the nineteenth century, the post office rejected some twenty-five thousand cards on the ground that they were not fit to be carried through the U.S. mail.
The first American publisher of valentines was printer and artist Esther Howland. Her elaborate lace cards of the 1870's cost from five to ten dollars, with some selling for as much as thirty-five dollars. Since that time, the valentine card business has flourished. With the exception of Christmas, Americans exchange more cards on Valentine's Day than at any other time of the year.
In the second half of the twentieth century, the practice of exchanging cards was extended to all manner of gifts in the United States, usually from a man to a woman. Such gifts typically include roses and chocolates packed in a red satin, heart-shaped box.
Rose Trivia
Facts:
In the 19th century old scented roses were used to make jelly.
The red rose is the symbol of England and is worn on St George's Day. It is also the symbol of love and is hugely popular on St Valentine's Day, when roses make up the largest proportion of the money spent on flowers in the UK on this day.
Medicinal:
The crusaders when defeated by Saladin in Jerusalem returned to the west with rose plants which were then cultivated by monks in their monastery gardens for their medicinal properties. Rose water was successfully used to cure all kinds of ailments, such as trembling, constipation, drunkenness, skin and throat infections and insomnia. There is some truth in this as we now know Rosa rugosa hips contain high levels of Vitamin C. Indeed, rosehip tea is often recommended in pregnancy. Rose oil can reduce high cholesterol levels. Roses are used in face toners and perfume and are one of the most effective anti-ageing ingredients.
Roses in History:
Clay tablets excavated in the temples of Ur in Iraq speak of the delivery of rose water intended for the sultan of Bagdad. The sultan used no fewer than 30,000 jars of rose water a year, to make his rooms smell nice for his extensive harem. The Saracen general Saladin sent camel caravans loaded with rose water through his empire to cleanse the mosques after 'impure' crusaders had occupied the prayer rooms.
Until the early 19th century dried rose petals were believed to have mysterious powers. Napoleon gave his officers bags of rose petals to boil in white wine, to cure lead poisoning from bullet wounds.
Even today, rose water is still used to refresh the hands before a feast or festive greeting, from the Middle East to northern India.
Cleopatra covered the floors of her palace with a thick layer of rose petals every day. The mattresses and pillows of her bed were stuffed with rose petals. There is a special rose language invented as a secret means of communication between lovers who were not allowed to express their love for one another openly in the harems of the Middle East.
In the mid 18th century Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the wife of the British ambassador in Constantinople, described this in her letters, which were published after her death. These letters inspired many books on the language of flowers, each describing the secret message hidden in each flower. A red rose bud stands for budding desire, while an open white rose asks "WIll you love me?". An open red rose means "I'm full of love and desire", while an open yellow rose asks "Don't you love me any more?"
Black Roses:
Magic and Mysticism, The magic of black flowers has attracted our attention for centuries. Black tulips and black roses appear to originate from a fairytale world. A pure black flower is the Holy Grail of plant breeders worldwide. Their improbable and "unnatural" colour inspires a powerful feeling of mystical expectation.
Black flowers were also beloved of Art Nouveau designers at the previous turn of the century. Victorians and Edwardians at the cutting edge of fashion used to collect them, going to great lengths to track down exotic species.
Will they once more - at the dawn of a new century and a new millennium - become a source of artistic and philosophical inspiration? In reality no pure black flowers exist. The so-called black tulip is actually very dark purple and the black rose is, in fact, very dark red. There are other less common cut flowers which occasionally occur in "black" forms - they all ooze decadence, mystery, fascination. With their very unusual petals, black roses make you think of velvet - deep soft cushions in a luxurious winter room. All this topped with the wonderful scent of flowers! With the black rose you float away to exotic places which are filled with the scent of roses. Boudoirs of plump maidens relaxing in perfumed harems. Combining black roses in a bouquet is not easy, but not impossible. To maintain the mystical feeling of the black, one of the best combinations is black roses with black ivy berries. They are available at the florists throughout the winter. The red-black of the rose with the blue-green black of the berry creates a perfect harmony.
The darkest roses to ask for include "Black Magic", Barkarole", Black Beauty" and "Baccara". A totally black bouquet looks dark and impressive - but perhaps a little sombre. Brown-red tints can enrich the black. Mix in hypericum for example, or chilli pods. Or better still, sparkle it up with grey and silver leaves - some of which have a sensuous furry feel... Very decadent!
