The Language of Flowers

About the story

A florist fluent in the Victorian language of flowers receives weekly orders from a mysterious customer whose bouquets are messages. She answers in kind, and a courtship unfolds entirely in stems and petals.

This guide assumes everyone has finished the story, so it discusses the ending.

Character map

• Aldous Finch writes in flowers to Odalys Brandt
• Odalys Brandt answers in bouquets Aldous Finch
• The window display first speaks to Aldous Finch
• Odalys Brandt decodes with The green notebook
• Odalys Brandt quietly softens messages for The customers

Who’s who

Odalys Brandt · Protagonist

Has run Thistle & Rue for eleven years and keeps her own additions to the flower dictionary.

Aldous Finch · Love interest

Works at the botanical archive. Read the language for twenty years with no one to say it to.

The green notebook · The dictionary

Odalys’s private grammar of flowers, in pencil.

The customers · The unknowing

People who say things with flowers without knowing it.

The window display · Catalyst

Dried lavender and snowdrops for a customer’s mother. Aldous read it and knew.

Themes to look for

• Hidden language

  The Victorians used flowers for ‘things that could not be said aloud.’

• Privacy and respect

  Odalys won’t trace him, because that would be ‘reading someone’s mail.’

• Loneliness

  Rue: ‘I have been alone for a long time and I am not sure I remember how to stop.’

• Being understood

  ‘There is someone who is saying something, and she means it.’

Discussion questions

1. Odalys tucks kinder flowers into customers’ bouquets without telling them. Is that kind, or a little presumptuous?
2. What made Mr. Finch’s first order impossible to dismiss as chance?
3. Which exchange of flowers moved you most, and why?
4. The four-leaf clover card says ‘be mine’ and also ‘I’m afraid.’ Why include both?
5. Why does Odalys refuse to trace the account even though she could? Would you have?
6. Aldous fell for Odalys after reading a window display meant for someone else’s grief. What does that say about him?
7. Odalys’s new entry for rue means ‘stay.’ Why is it fitting that the story ends with her adding to the dictionary?
8. Is there a ‘secret language’ you share with someone: a phrase, a gesture, a gift?

Craft corner

For writers in the group. Each term links to the writer’s glossary.

• Symbolism: Each flower carries a meaning. How does the story let objects do the talking?
• Subtext: Most of the courtship happens without a spoken word. Where is the real conversation happening?