You know how different colors of roses have different meanings? In the modern day we have red roses representing love and yellow or pink for friendship. Well that's a left over relic of the Victorian flower language.
Another modern example is professor Snape from Harry Potter asking Harry those tough questions on the first day of potions class. While Snape was a jerk for putting Harry on the spot like that and for testing him, Snape also gave a code in victorian flower language that went over Harry’s head and over the head of most people. Asposel (A lily. Lily is the name of Harry’s mom and Snape’s prior friend/crush. He had a romantic obsession for her, or perhaps a love for her, that never left him even to his death.) means my regrets follow you to the grave. Wormwood means absence and bitter regret. If you put them both together Snape gave the message “I bitterly regret Lily’s death” while also managing to still be kind of a jerk to Harry. Lol. Had Harry understood victorian flower language, maybe Snape would of been blamed less by Harry and his friends for the bad things happening at school, or maybe not. Who can tell?
So anyway, back in the Victorian era (in England, north America, and France) you could basically convey a wide range of meanings just by exchanging a bouquet of flowers or by wearing them as an accessory. If the receiverod a bouquet was unsure of the meaning, they could check a dictionary of flower meanings as long as they knew the name of the flower. You could also see the flower symbolism in plays and art. It was very popular from 1810 to around 1880.
