Forms of floral decoration

Plant materials are customarily arranged in containers, woven into garlands, and worn or carried for personal adornment. Flower bouquets that are carried include the nosegay and corsage. In the mid-19th century, the nosegay, or posy (a small bunch of mixed flowers), was much in fashion. No well-dressed Victorian lady appeared at a social gathering without carrying one, edged with a paper frill or delicate greens and sometimes inserted into a silver filigree holder. Messages of love were often spelled out in the flowers of the nosegay, for the “language of flowers” was carefully studied at the time, and courtships progressed through the sending of such floral symbols.

Worn since the 18th century, the corsage has become especially popular in the 20th century. Instead of a nosegay, an admirer frequently sends a lady an orchid, a gardenia, or a small bunch of wired flowers to be worn at the waist, shoulder, or on the wrist, or attached to a handbag and carried. Only the flower heads are used in a corsage. Wires are inserted through the calyx (the usually green or leafy external portion of a flower) and bent to thrust the flowers forward or to the side; then the ends are bound together with tape or ribbon. Leaves or foliage threaded crosswise with wire are usually added. A ribbon bow often completes the corsage.

Sprays are large, flat bouquets of long-stem plant material. They are either carried or placed on caskets or at tombs as commemorative offerings. If the plant material used is short-stemmed, wire is used to add length. The ends of the stems or wire extensions are frequently thrust into a block of moss or stiff plastic foam to secure the arrangement. A blanket of flowers is often laid over a casket at a funeral or over a racehorse in the winner’s circle. Blankets are made by stretching burlap over a frame, covering it with a layer of flat fern, and then adding delicate asparagus fern (Sprengeri). The fern surface is then covered with flower heads, which are threaded with wire and fastened on the underside of the blanket.

Garlands are bands of plant materials that have been woven or in some other way attached together; they are not arranged in a container. A circular garland is called a wreath, or if it is worn around the head, a chaplet. Garlands draped in loops are called festoons or swags. The origin of these forms is unknown, but evidence of their use dates from ancient times and is not restricted to any particular culture.

Garlands have been used for many purposes. Ancient Egyptians placed them on mummies. The Greeks used them to decorate their homes, civic places, and temples. For festive occasions the ancient Romans wore garlands of strung rose petals. When these garlands of roses were suspended from ceilings, the conversation that took place beneath them was sub rosa. On European festival days such as Corpus Christi, cattle are bedecked with neck garlands. On Indian holy days, the Hindus take garlands to the temple to be blessed before wearing them; they also hang garlands on the statues of their deities.

In the ancient world it was probably the Romans who most fully developed the ornamental form and use of the festoon. Fine examples are carved in marble on the Ara Pacis or Altar of Peace (13–9 bce) near the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome. Roman festoons were usually made of fruit, grain, leaves, and flowers. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries it was fashionable, particularly in England, to create artificial festoons over fireplace mantels. Called swags, they were usually carved of wood. Among the most famous are those executed by the English sculptor Grinling Gibbons.

Wreaths have been both worn and displayed. In antiquity the wreath was bestowed upon public officials, athletes, poets, and returning warriors. The ancient Greco-Roman custom of bestowing a laurel crown, or wreath, upon a poet was revived during the Renaissance, especially in Italy. Napoleon chose a laurel wreath of gold for his crown, emulating the emperors of the Roman Empire. At Christmas time since the 19th century, wreaths of evergreens, holly, or pinecones and nuts have been traditionally hung as decorations in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada. In medieval and Tudor England the boar served for Christmas dinner had a wreath of rosemary and bay. During Advent, a period including the four Sundays before Christmas, a wreath with four candles (each symbolizing one of the Advent Sundays) is traditionally hung in Christian homes and churches.

Plant materials have been used for personal adornment in forms other than corsages, nosegays, garlands, and wreaths. Ancient Egyptian wall paintings show women with lotus blossoms in their hair, and today the hibiscus adorns the hair of women of the South Seas. Necklaces of flowers are commonly worn in South and Southeast Asia. In Hawaii, Vanda orchids or velvety frangipani blossoms are strung into long necklaces called leis, the customary gifts of both welcome and farewell.

Many types of dress accessories are decorated with flowers. Staffs ornamented with plant material are seen in ancient art and mentioned in ancient literature. Egyptian servants or standard bearers were often depicted holding staffs of papyrus and lotus blossoms. An attribute of Dionysus and his satyrs was the thyrsus, a staff topped by a pinecone and sometimes further decorated with vine or ivy leaves and grapes. Well-known flowering staffs or rods include those of Aaron, the brother of Moses, and St. Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus.

Pictorial effects have been achieved by using cut flower heads or petals to create masses of colour that are then worked into patterns. The traditional carpet of flowers laid down on the Via Livia in Genzano, Italy, for the feast of Corpus Christi is incredibly intricate and colourful. Figures of angels, madonnas, and saints, geometric designs, and coats of arms are worked out with flower petals to form a carpet over which the religious procession passes. Mexicans frequently carpet their churches with mosaics of wild flowers, and in the Netherlands during tulip time flower pictures are made for competition. About 12 feet square, made for the most part of tulip and hyacinth blossoms, they are designed on inclined backgrounds for better visibility. Some of these pictures are three-dimensional.

For centuries flower-covered floats have been used in parades. The Italian painter and architect Giorgio Vasari (1511–74) described 21 garland-decorated floats he designed for a pageant in Florence. The most famous of modern floral parades is the Tournament of Roses parade held on New Year’s Day at Pasadena, California. Floats up to 50 feet (15 metres) in length are constructed over the chassis of motor vehicles. Rough framework is covered with chicken wire shaped and sprayed with a polyvinyl coating. Flower heads are attached with either glue or wire.