Another flower from the list of white flowers for church decoration is the carnation. The bloom we commonly call "carnation" has the botanical name Dianthus caryophyllus.
The Wikipedia article linked above has an extensive exposition on the origin of the common and botanical names and the many facets of the symbolism attached to the flower -- Christian, pagan, social and political.
The common name "carnation" derives from the Latin root "carn" meaning flesh -- the same Latin that also gives us "carnal" in English and "carne" (meat) in Spanish. I think the best view is that "carnation" refers to the incarnation -- Our Lord made flesh. The Wikipedia entry suggests that the common term "carnation" came from "corona" since wreaths and crowns of carnations were ostensibly used ceremonially in Greek and Roman culture. That is an imaginative proposition which on its face seems more than a little improbable: it is quite a stretch to get from corona to carnation but no stretch at all to get from incarnatio to carnation.
In any event, white carnations are good candidates for altar flower arrangements with their lovely blooms and relatively long stems, which have a certain amount of flexibility. Also the blooms are compact enough to work well with several other elements in an arrangement.
Image: Carnations by Redoute. From Wikimedia Commons. Click here for Creative Commons license.
2 comments:
Carnations are one of my favorite flowers to use! It seems I have heard them called the Italian rose somewhere? The fragrance of dianthus is lovely; we have a miniature variety in our garden but brought indoors it fills the room.
Yes, I should have mentioned their fragrance. Thanks for posting, Gemma.
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