The History of Flowers

Since, I've chosen to base my editorial and reportage on flowers and florists in Norwich, I thought that it would be a good idea to start by looking at how flowers came to be.

Flowers fossils were found dating back 93 million years and recently, tiny herb-like flowers were discovered dating back 120 million yeas. Furthermore, traces of association of flowers and humans were found to have started from the palaeolithic age. Ever since the discovery, an estimated 270,000 species of flowers have been documented and out of the 270,000 , 125,000 species have been developed. Some species have been found to have evolutionary history extending across some 125 years.

Flowers were used to express their feelings, enhance their surroundings, commemorate important rituals and observances and the mot opulent examples of source materials are oil paintings done by artists during the 17th , 18th and 19th centuries.

The rose specifically, first appear in Asian gardens 5000 years ago and was brought over to Europe by Sargon I, King of the Akkadians along with vines and figs on his way back from a military expedition at the River Tigris. The rose was then planted by King Childebert I for his queen in Paris.

From this point on, the meaning of the rose will start to slowly spread across Europe and enter England during the Victorian Era when flower dictionaries were widely distributed.

#EDITORIAL