Birthday Flowers: Chrysanthemum

This year we're delving into birthday flowers that are associated with the month in which a person was born. Floriography, or communication through flowers, is a fun aspect of birthday flowers. Celebrating birthdays with flowers fits right in with this year's theme of celebrating life in The Roaring Twenties.

For November, birthday flowers include Chrysanthemums and Peonies. I'm focusing on chrysanthemums (or mums), since they bloom in late summer and fall and have been bred to produce wonderful fall colors. In general, mums signify life and rebirth, good luck, happiness, joy, longevity, honor and respect. In China, they are a symbol of stateliness.

Different colors of chrysanthemums Chrysanthemum x morifolium.
(Photo by Jebulon)

Flower colors can convey particular meaning:

• White - purity, innocence, truth, and honesty
• Yellow - neglected love and sorrow
• Pink - longevity, attraction, romance
• Purple - care, understanding, get well wishes
• Red - love and deep passion

The Chrysanthemum genus is in the daisy family (Asteraceae). The plants can be one to three feet high with an upright growth habit. Leaves are dark green and deeply lobed. Flowers can be single, semidouble or double, and take many forms, including daisy-like, pompom, button and spidery. Mums originated in China and were later introduced to Japan and Europe.  The original color was golden, but many other colors are now available. Mums are considered an annual, but they dry nicely, so you can enjoy them in arrangements or wreaths long after the plant has died. In China, chrysanthemums were used medicinally for headaches, to lower blood pressure, and to reduce inflammation.

While researching chrysanthemums, I remembered the movie Curse of the Golden Flower (2006),  which is set in the royal court of the late Tang dynasty in ancient China. It is a complex story of court intrigue. Memorable elements includes a courtyard filled with golden mums and the queen's golden army of 10,000 assassins (each of whom wears an embroidered golden chrysanthemum made by the queen herself). Does the golden mum represent neglected love and sorrow?