By Lydia O'shea

Lemon Blossoms - "Fidelity in love."

Lent Lily - "Sweet disposition," also "regard." Another name for the daffodil, which flowers during Lent.

Lichen - "Solitude," "dejection."

Lilac (Purple) - "First emotions of love." Originally brought from Persia.

Lilac (Field) - "Humility."

Lilac (White) - "Youthful innocence."

Lily (Day) - "Coquetry."

Lily (Imperial) - "Majesty."

The lily's height bespoke command,

A fair, imperial flower; She seemed designed for Flora's hand,

The sceptre of her power.

Lily (White) - "Purity and sweetness."

The white lily (often called Madonna Lily) was consecrated to the Virgin Mary, because it was the emblem of her two chief characteristics.

The lady lily, looking gently down. It also blooms at the Feast of the Visitation (July 2nd), and flowers freely till July 15.

From Visitation to St Swithin's showers, The lilie white reigns queen of the floures.

There is a beautiful old legend which asserts that when the Apostles, on the third day after her burial, visited the grave of the Saviour's Mother, they found it open and filled with a growth of roses and white lilies, which flowers were henceforth made her special emblems. The Venerable Bede refers to the "Great White Lily" as a fit emblem of the Virgin, the pure white petals being symbolical of her spotless body, and the golden anthers within the type of her soul shining with Divine effulgence. For this reason lilies were always grown profusely in all convents and monastery gardens, which they made veritable bowers

Lily (Yellow) - "Falsehood," "gaiety." Lily Of the Valley - "Return of happiness."

That shy plant the lily of the vale,

That loves the ground, and from the sun withholds

Her pensive beauty, from the breeze her sweets

Linden - "Conjugal love." The legend runs that when Jupiter and Mercury once descended to the earth to visit the plains of Phrygia, they sought hospitality in vain, till they found it in the rude hut of Philemon and Baucis, the poorest of the inhabitants. In return for the genuine kindness of heart of these two poor cottagers, Jupiter promised to grant them any request they might ask. They begged to be allowed to die together, as they were greatly devoted to one another. Jupiter then transformed their hut into one of his magnificent temples, and appointed them as its custodians. At their simultaneous death, Baucis was converted into a linden-tree, and Philemon into an oak. Being planted outside the portals of the temple, their branches intertwined at the top, thus continuing the mutual affection which they had borne each other in life. Lobelia - "Malevolence." The plant derives its name from the botanist Lobel. London Pride - "Frivolity." This pretty species of saxifrage is often called "None-so-pretty," and "Nancy Pretty" (evidently a corruption of the former), as well as the quaint name "Hen and chickens." The delicacy and daintiness of the tiny spotted petals of the flower have occasioned its comparison to a daintily attired maid of a frivolous disposition. Lotus - "Eloquence."

Lote-tree - "Concord." The Egyptians pictured their god sitting upon a lote-tree above the watery mud of the Nile. The leaves and fruit of the lote-tree, being round, were considered the symbol of the circling mind; its rising high above the soil, the supremacy of Divine intellect over matter; and the deity seated thereon his superiority over mortal intellect. Mahomet taught that a lote-tree stood in the seventh heaven, on the right hand of the throne of God. The Egyptians dedicated the lotus to the sun, the god of eloquence, because the flower rose above the water and opened its petals at sunrise, and closed them and sank again at sunset. In the "Odyssey" XI.,Homer relates the tradition of the lotus-eaters, or lotophagi, a people who ate of the lotus-tree, and henceforth forgot everything about their home, kindred, and friends, desiring hereafter only to live in idleness in Lotusland. Tennyson's poem "The Lotus-eaters" refers to the same tradition. Lotus-flower - "Estranged love." Lotus-leaf - "Recantation." Love-in-a-mist - "Perplexity." This is the prettiest of little blue flowers, set in a calyx of long feathery fronds, which half shroud it in a green mist. Love-lies-bleeding - "Hopeless, not heartless." One of the most beautiful of the species of amaranth (everlasting) flowers. It is supposed to be the type of undying love, which, however much it suffers, never changes or grows cold. Milton chooses it for the diadem of the angels:

With solemn adoration down they cast

Their crowns, inwove with amaranth and gold Immortal amaranth, a flower which once

In Paradise, fast by the tree of life,

Began to bloom.

Lucern - "Life." Lucern will grow in one spot for years, but once it leaves it, it is for ever, hence its adoption as an emblem of life.

Lupin - "Voraciousness." From the Latin "lupus," a wolf. The Dutch call this plant "wolfsboon" (wolf's bean).