what is the story behind edelweiss flower?
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The Flower That Lives Above The Clouds\nLONG ago, long ago when the flowers first woke to life on this dear earth, each chose where it would live as it chose, too, the color of its petals.\n"I will cover the ground and make the bare soil gay with green blades," cried the grass.\n"I will live in the fields and by roadsides," laughed the daisy.\n"I, too," echoed the buttercup, the cornflower, the poppy, and the clover.\n"Give me the ponds and the lakes," the water lily called.\n"And let us have the streams and the marshes," begged the irises, cowslips, and Jacks-in-the-pulpit.\n"We love the shaded, ferny woodland spots," lisped the shy forget-me-nots and wood-violets.\n"And we wish to be petted in gardens," declared the rose, the pansies, the sweet williams, the hollyhocks.\n"I love the warm dry sun — I will go to the sandy desert," said the cactus. So all places except the bare ridges of high mountains were chosen. To these, no flower wished to go.\n"There is not enough food there!" the daisy explained.\n"There is not enough warmth! There is not enough food!" all decided. " It is so bare and chilly! Let the gray moss go and cover the rocks," they said.\nBut the moss was loath to go.\n"When one cannot live without moisture, warmth, nourishment — when one must have petting or live in a garden, surely the bleak places of the mountains must do without flowers! How foolish it would be to try to make the ragged, bare mountain-tops lovely! Let the gray moss go — he has not yet chosen!"\nSo the gray moss went up the high mountains because he was told to go. He climbed over the bare rocks beyond the places where forests ceased to grow. All was desolate and silent up there.\nUp higher and higher crept the gray moss. It went even above the clouds where the ragged rocks were covered with ice and snow.\nThere it stopped short in amazement, for it found a quiet star-shaped flower clinging to the crags and blossoming! It was white like the snow around it, and its heart was of soft yellow. So cold was it up there that the little flower had cased its leaves in soft wool to keep warm and living in the bleakness.\n"Oh!" cried the gray moss, stopping short. "How came you here where there was no warmth, no moisture, no nourishment? It is high above the forests, high above the clouds! I came because I was sent. Who are you?"\nThen the little starry flower nodded in the chill wind. "I am the edelweiss," it said. "I came here quietly because there was need of me, that some blossom might brighten these solitudes."\n"And didn't they tell you to come?"\n"No," said the little flower. "It was because the mountains needed me. There are no flowers up here but me."\nThe edelweiss is closer to the stars than the daisy, the buttercup, the iris, or the rose. Those who have courage, like it, have found it high above the clouds, where it grows ever gladly. They call it Noble White — that is its name, edelweiss! Love, like the edelweiss, knows not self-sacrifice.\n\n\nAnd\nOn a crisp spring morning a young Bavarian couple set out on a hike through the mountains with grand alpine peaks piercing the blue skies of southern Germany. A few hours into their hike, they have walked through meadows full of blooming yellow, blue and purple wildflowers. However, they have not come across the one flower they want to find- the Edelweiss. Just beyond, the young man spots the white flower with felt like petals on an exposed cliff. In order to pick the Edelweiss, he ignores his own safety to prove his bravery. Reaching out on loose rock, he finally has the flower, the “ultimate love charm” of the Alps. With the simple gesture of giving the young woman the Edelwiess, the young man is once and for all able to express his lasting love.\nFor generations this flower has been the insp
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Actually it started with a combination of spreding the Christian religion and ancient Roman beliefs.  Early Christians believed certain trees flowered unseasonably on Christmas Eve as homage to Jesus’ birth. This belief combined with the Roman practice of decorating their homes with greenery for the New Year formed the basis of our modern days Christmas.\n\nThe decorating of various structures and trees has been recorded in Europe from the 17th century on, but the first written account of a “Christmas tree” did not appear until 1605. According to John Matthew’s The Winter Solstice, an anonymous German citizen that year recorded trees being decorated with “roses cut out of many colored paper, apples, wafers, gold-foil, [and] sweets”. \nIt was more than 100 years later when Professor Karl Gottfried Kissling of the University of Wittenburg wrote of people adding candles for decorations and placing children’s wrapped branches around the bottom of the small indoor trees.\n\nEven though the practice was initially condemned by religious leaders, it spread from Germany to Finland through Norway and Denmark. In 1840, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of England endorsed the tradition by displaying their own ornately decorated tree at their palace. By the early 1900s, decorating the tree was as much a part of Christmas as Santa Claus and opening presents.
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Valentine's Day occurs annually on Februay 14. Modern day customs include sending greeting cards known as valentines to loved ones. School rooms are often decorated with lace and paper hearts. Gifts of candy and flowers are also common at this time.\n\nThe origins of Valentine's Day are uncertain. Many experts believe that it originated with Lupercalia, a Roman celebration honoring the wolves Romulus and Remus. During this festival, young men struck women with a goatskin hide called a februa. Receiving the blows was thought to make women more fertile and to ease childbirth. At Lupercalia, the names of all the young women in the city were placed in a box. Young men drew a name from the box and the couple would be paired until the next Lupercalia. Lupercalia was replaced with Valentine's Day by Christians.\n\nOthers trace Valentine's Day back to the rule of the Roman emperor Claudius II. In the 200's C. E., Claudius become frustrated when he had trouble recruiting soldiers into his army. Believing that the young men did not want to leave their wives and children, Claudius banned all marriages of single young men. However, a priest named Valentine disobeyed Claudius and performed secret marriages. Claudius found out about the marriages and sentenced Valentine to prison until his death on February 14, 270 C. E.\n\nMany historians believe the custom of sending poetic verse on this day originated with the capture of Charles, Duke of Orleans, during the Battle of Agincourt. From his prison cell in the Tower of London, Charles sent his wife a rhyming love letter.\n\nValentine cards became popular in Great Britain in the nineteenth century. Noted artist Kate Greenaway created cards which featured joyful children and beautiful gardens. Esther Howland was one of the first Valentine card manufacturers in the United States. Inspired by a British card, she began production in 1847. Her cards featured lace and paper flowers and leaves. Other card manufacturers emphasized Cupid, the pudgy, winged son of Venus, the goddess of love. In Roman lore, Cupid is known as Eros, the son of Aphrodite.
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Could be a lot of things. What do the flowers and leaves look like? Or can you ask your friend, maybe?\nCould be a forsythia, a kerria, a broom, a flanelbush, an oregongrape, a hypericum, or a rose. Or a lot of other things. Hopefully it's a flanelbush (fremontodendron).
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In a religious/philisophical context, flowers symbolize renewal.  Either renewal of the body or of the soul. Also, perennial plants (ones which flower yearly) are analogus to the religious doctrine of ressurection.    A lot has to do with the ancient's perception of illness and the role that plants/flowers played in that.  Medicinal plants/flowers restored ill people to health, so there is a subconscious need to maintain a "relationship" with flowers/plants.  I know that this is a little disjointed, but I'm just giving you the tip of the iceberg to work with.\n\nGood Luck
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This is very specific to the culture you live in, and to the Victorian era (1832-1907).  Also remember most people, as in maybe 1 in 10,000 will even have the thought of understanding or thinking of the meaning of a specific flower.  Presuming you live in the U.S. these are thought to be the representations.\n\n* Daffodil : respect and admiration\n* Mum : bronze excitement;red sharing & love;white truth;yellow secret admirer\n* Poinsettia : asking for “Be Of Good Cheer”\n* rattan : ?\n* Chrysanthemum : friendship; red love; white truth;yellow slighted love\n\nThe color is more important then the type of flower:\nRed love, passion, lust\nPink happiness, love\nWhite  purity, innocence, pure love (not eros, but pathos or philia)\nYellow  friendship; or slighted love; or secret love
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u will get all the information u need on botony frm the below link\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower#Flower_anatomy
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Actually I could not find anything either. Closest I found was:\n\nDianantha: Otherwise it could be derived from dianthus, the name of a type of flower (from Greek meaning "heavenly flower").
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The flower opens during the day and closes during the night.
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Dreidel\n \nThe dreidel (a four-sided spinning top) is associated with Hanukkah. It has four sides, each engraved with a different Hebrew letter:\n\nנ (Nun) \nג (Gimel) \nה (Hey) \nש (Shin) \nThese letters are an acronym for the Hebrew words, נס גדול היה שם, Nes Gadol Haya Sham—"A great miracle happened there" (referring to the miracle of the oil that took place in the Beit Hamikdash).\n\nIn Israel, the fourth side instead shows the letter פ (Pe), rendering the acronym, נס גדול היה פה, Nes Gadol Haya Po—"A great miracle happened here" (referring to the fact that the miracle occurred in the land of Israel).\n\nTraditional Jewish commentaries ascribe deep symbolism to the markings on the dreidel. One commentary, for example, connects the four letters with the four exiles to which the nation of Israel was historically subject—Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome.[13]\n\nThe dreidel is the centerpiece of a game which is often played after the lighting of the Hanukkah menorah, to keep the children interested during the short time the candles are burning. Each player starts out with 10 or 15 coins, nuts or other markers, and places one marker into the "pot". The first player spins the dreidel, which lands with one of its symbols facing up, indicating the appropriate action to be taken, corresponding to one of the following Yiddish words:\n\nNun - nisht - "not" - the next player spins \nGimel - gants - "all" - the player takes the entire pot \nHey - halb - "half" - the player takes half of the pot, rounding up if there is an odd number \nShin - shtel ayn - "put in" - the player puts one or two markers in the pot \nAnother version differs in that nun is nem - "take", while gimel is gib - "give". The game may last until one person has won everything.\n\nThe dreidel game is played in part to commemorate a game that the Jews under Greek domination played to camouflage their Torah study. Though the Greeks made a law forbidding the study of Torah, the Jews would gather in caves to engage in learning. A lookout was posted to alert the group to the presence of Greek soldiers; if he spotted them, he would give a signal and the Jews would hide their scrolls and begin playing with spinning tops (dreidels) and coins. This ruse gave the impression that they were engaged in gambling, not learning.
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According to legend, the dogwood tree used to grow tall and straight and strong, and it was used as the cross of crucifiction.  Ever since then, it grows small and crooked, with flowers that represent the four wounds.\n\nNo basis in fact, this is just the story I've heard.
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dark flower\nused when one wants to refer to menstruation which - among most Tantrics - is regarded as a creative force.\nwww.yoniversum.nl/art/info.html
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I heard that the story was from east of France, possibly even as far as Russia. It's a very old story. I'm sure that it had some basis in truth.
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The Daffodil is one of the first flowers of spring.  Often the daffodil will bloom while the winter is trying to hold on, making it a short lived flower.  The Latin name for the Daffodil is Narcissus.  Narcissus was a man who was in love with himself and stood over a pool of water staring at his reflection until he turned into a flower.  The Daffodil represents unrequited love or deceitful hopes archaically, but modern day it has taken on other meanings.  Generally it is a flower that is bad luck for a wedding.  I don't know man.. that's all I got..
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Basic Story:\nSome say there are two Eroses, the elder who is the early god, and the other who is the eternally young son of Aphrodite. The "elder" Eros was the cause of the birth of the race of immortal gods and goddesses. The "younger" Eros is the one depicted as a winged boy, the son of Aphrodite, considered to be both the most beautiful and the youngest of the gods. \nBut even in this form, kids grown up. Problems ensue when Eros (called Cupid in this story) falls in love with Psyche. His radiance is such that for her own safety, he insists that she must never look upon his face, and he only visits her at night. At first, she's cool with this, but her sisters and family insist that her husband must be a grotesque and dangerous monster. Finally, to shut them up, one night she lights a lamp and sees his glorious beauty, which doesn't blast her but does make her tremble so hard she shakes the lamp. A few drops of hot oil dribble on her beloved, burning him, and he flies away from her in physical pain compounded by the pain of knowing she doubted him. \nHis mom, Aphrodite, is angry over the injury and over the concealed relationship. While Cupid recovers, Aphrodite hopes to get Psyche out of the way permanently by making life extraordinarily difficult for her daughter-in-law. This takes the form of various potentially deadly tasks such as dropping by to get some beauty lotion from Persephone in the Underworld, and, while you're out, Psyche, could you pick up some bottled water from the River of the Dead (the Styx)? \nBut Cupid eventually recovers, comes to her rescue, and they marry. As is appropriate, the God of Love gets a happy-ever-after. \nSome Major Temple Sites:\nHe had a sanctuary on Mount Helion
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I may be wrong but it sounds lik the name of a flower. It's a really nice name by the way...
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There are many compositions devoted to forests, plants, flowers. See links\n\nFlower polka\nI keep it still that faded flower\nLe parlate d'amor; The beautiful flower song from Faust\n'Tis but a little faded flower\nVioletta; I'm thinking of a flower