Tussie-mussies

I've written about these little spring bunches before.  That's the problem with house and home type blogs - what gives you pleasure one spring time is likely to give you the same joy the next.  So it is with these little tussie-mussies.

Their alternative name is nosegay, and if you could breathe the sweet fragrance of my little posy you would smell rose and freesia and the spicy scent of coriander.  Such a gentle, peaceful treat.

Flowers have a language of their own, and it is this bright and particular language that we would teach our readers. How charmingly a young gentleman can speak to a young lady, and with what eloquent silence in this delightful language. How delicately she can respond, the beautiful little flowers telling her tale in perfumed words; what a delicate story the myrtle or the rose tells! How unhappy that which basil, or yellow rose reveals, while ivy is the most faithful of all.

Collier's Cyclopedia of Commercial and Social information and Treasury of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge by Nugent Robinson and Peter Fenlon Collier, 1882.

Traditionally, the flowers in a tussie-mussie were chosen for the message they would convey to the recipient. Amongst Victorians, the term posy itself meant 'a brief sentiment', and that's before you even began reading the meanings on the individual flowers.

 In my posy, roses mean love. I don't know the meaning behind any of the others, but love is good enough on its own to me.

Floriography is so interesting, don't you think?