As I think you know, I love words. Like many people, I also love flowers. And you may infer from various word tastings I’ve done that I love words for flowers. So it would follow, then, that I am very good at naming flowers, right?
Nah. I’m terrible at it. Odds of my successfully naming a flower on sight are very low. But what does it matter? They don’t come when you call them.
Don’t I need to know the names of flowers when buying them? I guess so. When I’m buying cut flowers, they all have the same name, and yet it always seems to work, because the name is “those ones.” And when I’m buying flowers to grow at home…
…ha ha, trick question. I have never bought flowers to grow at home. I have some plants, sure, of the kind I’m unlikely to kill while growing them inside a high-rise apartment (without a balcony). Flowers are more daunting to me.
And yet, as I said above, I love flowers. I grew up in a house filled with flowers and other plants. My mother has one of the greenest thumbs you could ask for. I’m sure she knows the names of a great many flowers, since that makes it much easier to buy them and to find information on caring for them. For my part, I have taken pictures of them, such as the photos I’ve included here, all of which I took as a teenager in 1985 (with my dad’s Nikon F2 – but that’s another story). I have many more on my Flickr.
Don’t I need to know their names if I’m taking pictures of them? Nah, not unless I’m doing it for documentary purposes. A picture is not worth a thousand words, you know. A picture is not worth words and words are not worth pictures. There is no exchange rate. You may as well try to convert a novel to a symphony, or a sculpture to a perfume. One can inspire the other, yes, but one can never contain or match the other. And it’s perfectly possible to enjoy a visual experience without getting words tangled up in it. Can you imagine going up to a bellflower and saying, “OK, but what’s it about?”
But I do have a word for you, a word related to flowers. It’s a word for a gift my mother gave to me: anthophilia.
Is anthophilia a kind of flower? No. Does it have to do with ants? N— well, I suppose if they like flowers it does. You may recognize the -philia part, which denotes loving (or being attracted to, as in hydrophilia). It’s from a Classical Greek root. So is antho-, which comes from ἄνθος, ‘flower’ (and yes, you see it in chrysanthemum and anthurium).
So anthophilia means ‘love of flowers’. A person who loves flowers may be said to be anthophilous or to be an anthophile (both of which terms are, I should say, most often applied to insects, though they probably don’t know or care).
My mother, a first-rate anthophile, still has the gift of growing beautiful flowers, a gift that gives to others who get to see the results. The gift of anthophilia she gave me has flowered into a lifelong love for flowers – not for growing them or analyzing them, but just for enjoying them. (My wife also enjoys them, which makes me happy.)
But while I am not a flower gardener, I am a word gardener, so the gift I can give back to my mother is a garden or bouquet of words, and photos. And since today is her 80th birthday, I have put together today’s word tasting for her. Happy birthday, Mom!
Sesquiotica 