The New Murrey and Blue blog

Lurking among the many books around my home is a little booklet called A Calendar of Flowers and Their Saints, subtitled“A Flower for Every Day. A Saint for Every Flower.” It has no publication date, but is stamped Writers Service Bureau, London W.C. 1. Its pages are brown at the edges, there’s a teacup stain on its front cover, and it came from my aunt’s house. She had been a newspaper reporter in South Wales from the end of WWII to the 1980s. That is all I know of the booklet.

Anyway, when I came upon it again, I wondered what (1) Richard’s flower would be, and to which saint it was dedicated. As you know, his birthday was 2nd October, and according to the booklet his designated flower is the friar’s minor soapwort (saponaria dyginia). See above. This flower’s patron saints are the Guardian Angels. I tried in vain to identify this particular soapwort, and so the illustration is of the Saponaria officinalis. As to the Guardian Angels, they weren’t awake at Bosworth!

Next I decided to see what (2) Anne Neville’s flower would be. She was born on 11^th June, for which the little book says it’s the ox-eye daisy (chrysanthemum leucanthemum). This flower is dedicated to St Barnabas.

I don’t know the birthday of their tragic son, Edward of Middleham.

From here I went on, and the following is a brief list of other birthdays and associated flowers/plants/saints. There is even a mushroom in there! Please remember that sometimes the saints are connected to the plant, not to the birth date or actual saint’s day. And if you query the absence of, say, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, it’s because his birthday isn’t known,

(1) Edward IV, 28^th April, cuckoo pint (Arum maculatum), St Didimus/Didymus. Um, given Edward’s track record, I have to say that this plant seems rather appropriate!

(2) Elizabeth Wydeville, 3rd February, great water moss (fontinalis antepyretica), St Blaise. Might be fitting for the daughter of the “Lady of the Rivers”?

(3) Elizabeth of York Her birthday was today, 11^th February, red primrose (primula verna rubra), St Theodora.

(4) Edward of Westminster (Edward V), 2nd November, winter cherry (physalis), St Marcian. This plant is known to me as Chinese lanterns.

(5) Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, 17th August, toadflax (linaria vulgaris), St Manus (St Magnus the Martyr?)

(6) George, Duke of Clarence, 21st October, hairy silphium (silphium asteriscum), St Ursula – George’s birthday and the saint’s day are the same. I’m not sure which plant is being referred to here, especially as a lot of the genus seem to be from the southern states of the US, where it is commonly known as cup plant. Suffice it that they are almost all yellow, with daisy-like flowers.

(7) Isabel Neville, 5^th September, mushroom (agaricus campestris), St Laurence Justinian (who wasn’t a saint at the time of Isabel’s life).

(8) Edward, 17th Earl of Warwick, 25^th February, peach (amygdalus persica), St Walberg.

(9) Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, 14^th August, zinnia (zinnia elegans), St Eusebius. Unfortunately, the zinnia hails from America, and so would not have been known to Margaret. And St Eusebius’s feast day does not match her birthday.

(10) Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, 3rd May, poetic narcissus (narcissus poeticus). Saint – Invention of the Cross – indeed associated with Cecily’s birthday.

(11) Richard, 3rd Duke of York, 21st September, Cilcated Passion Flower (passiflora ciliata) St Matthew. The duke’s birthday and the saint’s day are the same.

(12) Richard Neville, 16^th Earl of Warwick, 22nd November, trumpet-flowered wood sorrel (oxalis uniflora), St Cecilia. I’m afraid I do not know which sorrel is referred to here, and so the image is of the common wood sorrel, as found in British woodlands. In the Kingmaker’s case, his birthdate and the saint’s day are the same.

Oh, and we must not forget dear Henry VII, lucky number (13). His birthday was 28^th January, double daisy (bellis perennis plenus) and the saint is St Margaret of Hungary (born 27^th January, died and feast day 18^th January). It’s rather hard to imagine him as any daisy, let alone a double one.