FlowyricFlowyric
How about this flower?Lavender · “Quiet waiting”

Choosing Gift Flowers by Flower Meaning

Knowing the label attached to each flower makes choosing a gift much easier. Flower meanings, however, are not a universal standard; they are labels that differ from one book or service to another. This guide looks in turn at how flower-meaning lists spread through books, what kind of labels Flowyric uses, and how to choose flowers and colors for the feeling you want to convey.

Where flower meanings came from

Lists assigning meanings to flowers were widely published and read as books in nineteenth-century France, Britain, and the United States. An article from the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Libraries describes the French book Le langage des fleurs, published by Charlotte de La Tour in 1819, as containing about 300 meanings. Various British and American authors published their own editions, each drawing on different sources.

The answers therefore differed from book to book. The RHS article notes that meanings varied by author, and that the same plant could appear twice under its British and American common names with a different meaning assigned to each. Stories about secret codes exchanged through flowers are often associated with this period, but the heritage organization English Heritage says there is no actual evidence that bouquets were arranged to communicate specific meanings and sees the flower language as closer to a parlour game for educated women. Flowyric’s flower meanings are likewise not a universal standard; they are the labels this service currently uses in its app and on this site.

Choosing flowers by the feeling

Every name paired below is a Flowyric flower-meaning label. To confess your love, the Red Rose (Passionate love) and Orange Tulip (A confession of love) are classic choices. If your feelings are starting shyly, the Pink Ranunculus (A shy confession) or Pink Tulip (The beginning of love) can make the gesture feel less daunting.

For gratitude, the Pink Gerbera (A grateful heart) and Blue Hydrangea (Heartfelt sincerity) fit well. For friendship, reach for the Yellow Rose (Unchanging friendship) and Ivy (Steadfast friendship); for encouragement, the Yellow Freesia (Innocent cheer) and Sunflower (I look only to you).

When comfort is called for, you may gravitate towards calm choices such as the White Lily (A pure heart), Lavender (Quiet waiting), and Chamomile (Strength in adversity). All three also fit the game’s Words of Comfort theme. That theme is achieved when a bouquet has no stems classified as vivid, saturated colors and contains at least three calm materials; all three flowers count as calm, non-vivid colors. Although Chamomile has a distinct yellow center, the game treats it as a white-toned neutral material. These are only composition conditions, however, and what feels comforting depends on the recipient, so it is best to ask if you are unsure.

How color changes the meaning

The same flower changes its meaning when its color changes. The rose is the classic case — the Red Rose means Passionate love, the Pink Rose Happy love, the Yellow Rose Unchanging friendship, and the White Rose Pure respect. One species alone offers four different hearts to choose from.

Color does more than make choosing fun; it also affects how the game determines themes. The Anniversary Gift theme is achieved when romantic gift colors make up at least 70% of all stems. Eligible colors are pink and red, white blooms (neutrals excluding greenery), and cool blue and purple tones. Yellow and orange blooms and greenery such as Eucalyptus are not eligible, but they still count in the total number of stems used as the denominator. Adding several Yellow Roses therefore moves the bouquet farther from the Anniversary Gift requirement, even though they are roses. You can find every color variant and its flower meaning in the at-a-glance list below.

Choices that vary by country and occasion

Flower-gifting customs are difficult to generalize by country alone, and even within the same country they vary with the recipient and the occasion. The French National Horticultural Society (SNHF) guide to chrysanthemums separately mentions varieties cultivated for Toussaint (All Saints’ Day), showing that this cultivation practice exists in France. Flowyric treats differences like these as recommendation curation rather than a list of prohibitions. In the France, Germany, and Italy country settings, recommendations containing Chrysanthemum are omitted; in the Japan setting, arrangements totaling four or nine stems are not included in recommendations; and in the China setting, the share of neutral materials such as white-toned flowers and greenery is limited for Anniversary Gift and Celebration recommendations. Conversely, recommendations centered on white flowers for White Day and weddings remain available in the Korea and Japan settings. These rules affect only the recommendation list and do not block any arrangement you build yourself. If you are curious about the recipient’s culture, consult the flower culture by country guide as well.

Practice: Keep the Bouquet and Change Only the Card Message

Once you have chosen the flowers and their meanings, the question is what to write on the gift card. This practice keeps the bouquet fixed at 5 Pink Roses + 3 White Tulips + 2 Eucalyptus, wrapped in White Paper for a total of 10 stems, and changes only the message you write on the card so you can see which parts move with it. When you open a card for this arrangement, the top line reads “Meaning · Happy love.” Flowyric chooses the representative flower by looking first at flowers in the Main role and then at stem count, so the meaning comes from the Pink Rose, the Main flower here.

Two kinds of text can appear on the card. One is the beautiful message received when you finish the bouquet, shown as a quotation on the card. Depending on the server settings, that message may be absent, but the card can still be made without it. The other is the message you enter yourself in the “A message to share (optional)” field below the card, which appears as a paragraph beneath the beautiful message. This practice changes only the second kind, the message you write yourself.

The two examples were written for this article; neither is a message sent by an actual user nor text generated by the service. The short, single-line example is “Mom, thank you for always being there for me.” (45 characters). The longer example has two lines: write “Before I say congratulations, I want to thank you.” on the first line, then start a new line and write “You reached out first; I thought of you as I chose these flowers.” (116 characters including the line break). Try the short example first, then erase it and replace it with the longer one to compare the two cards.

Changing only the message changes the words in the lower paragraph, the number of lines that paragraph occupies, and the card height. On the on-screen card, both examples appear in full without being cut off. The longer example preserves the line break you entered, may wrap further to fit the screen width, and makes the card taller. The bouquet drawing, top meaning line, card width, and background stay the same however you edit the message. The selected theme, not the message, sets the card background, and the wrapping, stem count, and theme result are unaffected. Erase the message completely and its paragraph disappears; if the beautiful message is also absent, the whole text area is omitted.

It also helps to know the input rules. A message can contain up to 120 characters, and a card received through a link is cut to the same limit. Line breaks remain, while leading and trailing whitespace is trimmed, so a message containing only whitespace is treated as empty. If you try to close the card while writing, Flowyric asks for confirmation once. Remember that “Share as image” draws the card differently from the on-screen card. The image has fixed dimensions and does not grow for a longer message, and unlike the beautiful message, your own message does not shrink in type size. This comparison did not check how the long message fits inside the image, so if you plan to send a long message as an image, export it once and inspect it yourself.

If you like the beautiful message, you can leave your own message empty and keep only that quotation and the flower meaning. Conversely, the card can still be made with only your own message and no beautiful message. There is no separate field for a recipient name, so if you want to include one, place it at the beginning of your message. This comparison shows how the card holds text; it is not evidence that one message communicates better than another. The link below loads only the flowers and wrapping into the creator and leaves the message empty. Finish the bouquet, choose “Send this bouquet as a gift,” and try the two examples yourself. The image and beautiful message received at completion can differ or be absent depending on server settings and previously saved results.

  • Pink Rose × 5
  • White Tulip × 3
  • Eucalyptus × 2
  • Wrapping: White Paper
  • 10 stems total
Start with the Pink Rose and White Tulip arrangement

All flower meanings at a glance

Make your own bouquet