Daisies

All flowers have symbology and mythology linked to them and because of this, the flowers you send have meaning alongside the act of giving them. In these blogs my aim is to tell the history behind the flowers and any meanings and symbolism the flowers possess, hopefully in an interesting way.

My plan is to start with a quote from a movie or a book with the flower of the week. This week is Daisies and is from the film, ‘You’ve Got Mail,’ the quote is:  “Don’t you think Daises are the friendliest flower?”

The name Daisy comes from an old English word ‘daegeseag’ meaning ‘day’s eye’, it’s believed that this is because the petal would fold over the centre at night. The saying ‘fresh as a Daisy’ comes from this, its meaning is to have a good night sleep.

Daisies come in an array of colours the most common being white petals with a yellow centre, but you can also get orange, yellow, pink and blue. The different colours also have a different symbolism attached to them. White Daisies are the ones most linked to innocence and purity so are often used in bouquets for new parents. The blue Daisies are the hardest to find and look very similar to Asters. 

Daisies are mostly associated in meaning with innocence and rebirth, more specifically childhood innocence; the making of Daisy chains and the game ‘he loves me, he loves me not’ is commonly played.  In both England and America, the Daisy has been used according to its ‘prophetic powers’  to predict a girls future husband, the game was - ‘this year, next year, sometime, never’, the other was ‘rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, doc-tor, law-yer, mer-chant, chief’. The participants would pluck the petals and chant and whichever name it landed was the prophesy. There was also a game where a girl would uproot a handful of grass and see how long she would be married for. Daisy chains are also believed to prevent a child from being taken by fairies when worn around the wrist.

Daisies are the largest flowering plant family, that makes them around 10% of all flowering plants on earth. They are called a composite/Compositae flower as they are made up of many tiny flowers.  With a Daisy you have the white petal around the yellow centre as the individual with the whole plant made up of tiny flowers all pressed together.

A few facts about Daisies;

Daisies are found everywhere in the world except for Antarctica.

Daisies are an amazing source of food for bees.

Daisies are the April birth month flower.

I hope you found this interesting to read, I had not heard of the songs ‘this year’ and ‘rich man’ before my research - only ‘he loves me’ maybe the songs have changed over the years or different parts of the country have different versions.

Thanks for reading, see you next week.

Sources

Daisy flowering meaning & symbolism guide – Bloom and Wild

The folklore of the Daisy – Katharine T Kell – The journal of American Folklore

The myths, magic and language of flowers – Floriography – Sally Coulthard

The healing power of flowers – Claire Boven and Eva Nemeith

Flowers and their meanings – Karen Azoulay