The Language of Flowers

The Rose

The rose is the most symbolically overloaded flower in human history, precisely because it exceeds every meaning humans try to give it. In this episode, we follow one of the largest and yet perhaps lesser known through lines of the rose, across Greek epigrams, Persian mysticism, and postwar Japan. Wherever desire and love are too big to be contained by the body or the century holding it, the rose finds a way to let it all thrive. Executive Producer, Writer & Host: Nina Ozier Co-host and Episode Cover Artist: Jake Kaplan Audio Producer & Sound Mixer: Elliot Terzian Theme Music: Paul Oliphant Episode References: 1. Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers: A History 2. Meleager of Gadara, Greek Anthology 3. Straton of Sardis, Mousa Paidike (The Boyish Muse) 4. Solon of Athens: homoerotic poetry fragments 5. Wikipedia: LGBTQ Symbols, Shams Tabrizi, Eikoh Hosoe 6. Kew Gardens: "Four Flowers That Have Become Queer Symbols" 7. Rumi, Masnavi and Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi 8. Eikoh Hosoe, "Subject Matter" lecture, American Suburb X (2010) 9. Aperture: Eikoh Hosoe: Barakei edition notes 10. Metropolitan Museum of Art collection entry on Barakei 11. Nippon.com [http://Nippon.com]: "Ordeal by Roses: The Astonishing Artistic Collaboration Between Mishima Yukio and Photographer Hosoe Eikō" 12. Yukio Mishima, preface to Barakei (1963) 13. Scientific American: "How Roses Evolved to Become the Flower of Valentine's Day" (2026) 14. Nesreen Akhtarkhavari and Anthony A. Lee (trans.), Rumi's Love is My Savior - "A Dream" from Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi

Violets

For over two thousand years, violets have been a shared language between women. In this episode, we follow a thread from Sappho's pen, through Parisian salons and art circles, to Broadway. And we ask how love finds a way to exist when the world insists it can't. Executive Producer, Writer & Host: Nina Ozier Co-host and Episode Cover Artist: Jake Kaplan Audio Producer & Sound Mixer: Elliot Terzian Theme Music: Paul Oliphant Episode References: 1. Anne Carson, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho 2. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Sappho” 3. Poetry Foundation biography 4. Shari Benstock, Women of the Left Bank 5. JSTOR Daily, “Why Violets Became a Symbol of Lesbian Love” 6. Lillian Faderman, Surpassing the Love of Men 7. Kew Gardens, "Four Flowers That Have Become Queer Symbols" — kew.org [http://kew.org] 8. JSTOR Daily, "Four Flowering Plants That Have Been Decidedly Queered" 9. Wikipedia, "LGBTQ Symbols" — for The Captive / violet sales detail 10. Dressing Dykes, "From Lavender to Violet: The Lesbian Obsession with Purple" — for Paris Lesbos community detail 11. Manchester Historian, "Fighting Lesbian Erasure in Historiography: Restoring Sappho as a Queer Identity" — Amber Barry 12. Wikipedia, "Renée Vivien" — for laudanum/violets suicide attempt detail 13. Freedom Socialist Party, "Gay Resistance: The Hidden History Part III" — for Vivien's work being unsellable in England and US 14. Taylor Institution Library, "Renée Vivien, Enfant Terrible of the Belle Époque" — for critical hostility detail

The Dahlia

The dahlia didn't arrive with a meaning. It accumulated one. In our titular episode, we trace how a sacred Aztec crop became a smuggled treasure, a botanist's legacy, and eventually a word in the Victorian language of flowers. Executive Producer, Writer & Host: Nina Ozier Co-host and Episode Cover Artist: Jake Kaplan Audio Producer & Sound Mixer: Elliot Terzian Theme Music: Paul Oliphant Episode References: 1. Seaton, Beverly. The Language of Flowers: A History. University of Virginia Press. 2. Greenaway, Kate. The Language of Flowers. London, 1884. 3. Cavanilles, Antonio José. Icones et Descriptiones Plantarum (1791–1801). 4. Sahagún, Bernardino de. Florentine Codex (Aztec botanical traditions). 5. Smithsonian Gardens. “The History of the Dahlia.” 6. Royal Horticultural Society. “Dahlia: History and Origins.”

The Blue Cornflower

Some symbols, however small, earn their weight through the specific, irreplaceable moments in which they were held. In our first episode we trace how a wildflower that grew at the margins of cultivated fields became a vessel for grief, resistance, and national memory. Executive Producer, Writer & Host: Nina Ozier Co-host and Episode Cover Artist: Jake Kaplan Audio Producer & Sound Mixer: Elliot Terzian Theme Music: Paul Oliphant Episode References: 1. Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 2. Monika Wienfort, Monarchy and Modernity in Prussia 3. Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory 4. Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History 5. George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars 6. Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers: A History