Violets are the flower of February; learn more about their rich history here.
February is known for many things: it is the only month less than thirty days long, it has the holiday of Valentine’s Day, and it is still quite cold, depending on where you live. As each month of the year has a given flower, so does February. Its two flowers are the violet and iris; here, we shall delve into the rich background of this year’s flower of the month, the violet.
February Birth Flower: The Violet
In Maryland, you might see many little violets with downturned, purple or blue heads in residential yards. Here, they are a type of weed. This type of violet is just one of around 500 species under the genus Viola. Each species has five petals, five stamens, and five sepals. One of these derivatives is the pansy, which is perhaps the most well-known hybrid. Violas are in the same family and practically synonymous with violets.
The Many Meanings of the Violet
The name “violet” might have come from the word for the flower named in an ancient Greek myth. When Zeus hid the priestess Io from his angry wife Hera, he turned Io into a heifer and created flowers called “ion,” or “vion,” for her to eat.
Thus, one of the most common meanings of the violet is that of hiddenness. One of the most famous examples is Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, in which the character Viola disguises herself as the male youth Cesario. A modern instance is the movie The Incredibles, because the character Violet’s superpower is invisibility.
Over the centuries, writers and poets have used the violet to represent pure maidens, but also the Victorian Language of Flowers’ designated symbol of faithfulness. Pansies specifically represent thoughts toward someone, as the word “pansy” derives from the French word for thought, pensée.
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