History of Flowers

RoseMolecular biologists, who use DNA molecules to estimate age, can trace roses back some 200 million years! The legends take root. Cloris, goddess of flowers, crowned the rose as queen of the flowers. Aphrodite presented a rose to her son Eros, god of love. The rose became a symbol of love and desire.
Eros gave the rose to Harpocrates, the god of silence, to induce him not to gossip about his mother's amorous indiscretions. Thus the rose also became the emblem of silence and secrecy. In the middle ages a rose was suspended from the ceiling of a council chamber, pledging all present to secrecy, or sub Rosa, "under the rosé”. The first cultivated roses appeared in Asian gardens more than 5,000 years ago. In ancient Mesopotamia, Sargon I, King of the Acadians (2684-2630 B.C.) brought "vines, figs and rose trees" back from a military expedition beyond the River Tigris
LilyLilies have been associated with many ancient myths, and pictures of lilies were discovered in a villa in Crete, dating back to the Minoan Period, about 1580 B.C.Lilies are mentioned in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, they symbolize chastity and virtue. In both the Christian and pagan traditions, the lily is a fertility symbol. In Greek marriage ceremonies the bride wears a crown of lilies and wheat… purity and abundance. Lilies are also a symbol of death, and at one time lilies were placed on the graves of children.
The lily has no true medicinal value, although In Elizabethan times, lilies were one of the ingredients in medicines to treatment fever, or for cleaning wounds, burns and sores.

Sunflower These flowers always turn towards the sun. They originated in Central and South America, and were grown for their usefulness, not their beauty. In 1532 Francisco Pizarro reported seeing the natives of the Inca Empire in Peru worshipping a giant sunflower. Incan priestesses wore large sunflower disks made of gold on their garments.
Sunflowers represented different meanings in many cultures. In China they symbolized longevity. In the Andes Mountains, golden images of sunflowers were found in temples. And North America Indians in the prairies placed bowls of sunflower seeds on the graves of their dead