The Language of Flowers in Her Little Flowers: Coded Communication, Protection, and Plot-Critical Blooms
What the Language of Flowers Is in the Novel
The language of flowers in Her Little Flowers is a private, inherited code that Eleanor Thwaite taught her daughters. It functions as both a practical system of plant knowledge and an emotional vocabulary through which Eleanor expressed what she could not say aloud. The author's note confirms that the language of flowers became a surprisingly important theme through the story, shaped to suit the plot and characters, drawing on a tradition that dates back to the pharaohs and reached its height in Victorian England.
Eleanor assigned each of her children a flower that matched their personality. Miss Cavendish recalls that Eleanor said all young children were crocuses until their personalities matured to suit their true flower. The assignments are revealed across the novel: Francine is lantana—rigid and severe but constant and loyal; Viola is peony—shy and compassionate; Agnes is chrysanthemum—honest, too honest sometimes; Madeleine is Ranunculus; and Bree is dogwood, a tree rather than a flower, carrying meanings of reliability, endurance, and love unbroken in adversity, with an additional layer of rebirth. Rosina, the youngest, was given delphiniums posthumously—a happy flower for a child who was always cheerful.
This system of assigning flowers is central to the novel's theme of the language of flowers as secret communication. Eleanor's choices encode her children's personalities in a way that only those initiated into the code can read.
The Flower Bed as Memorial
The most emotionally concentrated use of the language of flowers appears in chapter 16, when Francine digs up her garden searching for her sisters' bodies. She discovers a flower bed planted by Eleanor in memory of her lost children: peonies for Viola, chrysanthemums for Agnes, Ranunculus for Madeleine, lantana for Francine, purple crocuses for Monty—the baby brother who hadn't lived long enough to have his own flower—and delphiniums for Rosina. Bree's dogwood crouches protectively over the bed, its branches sweeping low so they caressed the plants encircling it. Francine recognizes this as the closest she will come to guessing at the personalities of her lost siblings, more personal and descriptive than any photograph could have been. She cannot bring herself to dig up this bed, sparing it from her destruction.
The memorial bed connects the language of flowers to the novel's theme of sisterhood beyond death. Eleanor's garden becomes a living archive of her children, and Francine's decision to spare it honors that archive.
The Language of Hatred: George's Grave
The same symbolic system that expresses love and grief also records hatred. In chapter 8, Francine walks through the family graveyard with Todd and finds an unmarked grave covered in plants that shrieked a terrible hatred: monkshood, black dahlias, tansy, St John's wort, basil, and lobelia. Francine reads these as a loathing that had endured and flourished through time in a dark floral chronicle. The grave belongs to George Thwaite, the abusive father who disappeared after the drownings. Eleanor used the language of flowers to condemn him in perpetuity, even without a headstone to name him.
This use of flowers as permanent judgment connects to the novel's theme of the haunting legacy of paternal abuse. The garden itself becomes a record of the family's trauma.
Milkweed and the Father
The assignment of milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) to George is one of the novel's most direct uses of floral code. In the 1969 timeline, when Agnes asks what flower Father is, Eleanor murmurs the botanical name, and Figjam—the young Francine—translates: it's milkweed, and it means leave me. Bree's response—I wish he would—and Figjam's observation that Mummy is always happier when he's not here make clear that the flower is both a wish and a warning. The father's presence is so toxic that even the children understand the coded rejection.
Toxicity as Revelation
In chapter 14, Francine realizes that almost every single plant in her garden had some form of toxicity. The moonflower, foxglove, hydrangea, rhododendron, oleander, poinsettia, wisteria, and English ivy are all poisonous to some degree. This realization reframes Eleanor's garden as a defensive space—beautiful but dangerous, like the mother herself. Francine notes that moonflower was Eleanor's flower, meaning to bloom in dark times, and reflects that it was only now she understood how dark those times had been for her mum. The garden's toxicity becomes a metaphor for Eleanor's protective ferocity and the danger that surrounded the family.
This revelation is intertwined with Francine's repressed memory and childhood trauma. The garden's danger mirrors the danger she has suppressed.
Protection and Ritual
The language of flowers is not only symbolic but practical. Francine maintains nightly protection rituals—scattering powdered roots and leaves along the garden boundary, checking herb sachets, and chanting herbal lore. Miss Cavendish dismisses this as nonsense, but Francine insists the herbs kept evil out, especially in the days leading to Eleanor's death. The chamomile lesson in the 1969 timeline teaches that chamomile is a boon to divert black curses, part of the old litany passed down through the Thwaite women and recorded in the Book of Shadows. The protective function of plants connects the language of flowers to the novel's supernatural elements and to Eleanor's attempt to shield her children from their father.
The manor itself, as a sentient archive, participates in this protective system. The house and garden together form a defensive boundary against the evil that once entered the family.
The Epilogue: Rebirth and Resolution
The epilogue completes the arc of the language of flowers. Francine buries the remains of Agnes, Viola, and Rosina beside Bree and Montgomery, planting snowdrop bulbs for spring—snowdrops being a flower associated with rebirth. She replaces the dark plants on George's grave with white tulips and purple hyacinths, symbolically transforming hatred into something more neutral or even hopeful. The garden is restored, and the manor becomes a hotel. The language of flowers, which once encoded fear, grief, and hatred, now encodes healing and renewal.
Study Questions
1. How does Eleanor Thwaite use the language of flowers differently for her living children versus her lost children?
Eleanor assigns each living child a flower that reflects their personality—lantana for Francine's rigidity and loyalty, peony for Viola's shyness, chrysanthemum for Agnes's honesty, Ranunculus for Madeleine. For the children she lost, she creates a memorial bed where each plant stands in for the child's character: peonies, chrysanthemums, crocuses for Monty, and delphiniums for Rosina, who hadn't moved on from crocus yet but was given a flower posthumously. The living children receive their flowers as identity markers; the lost children receive theirs as gravestones made of living plants.
2. What does the unmarked grave in the family graveyard reveal about Eleanor's feelings toward George Thwaite?
The grave is covered in plants that Francine reads as expressing hatred: monkshood, black dahlias, tansy, St John's wort, basil, and lobelia. The absence of a headstone combined with the deliberate planting of hostile flowers suggests Eleanor wanted George's memory condemned without naming him. The grave functions as a dark floral chronicle of enduring loathing, showing that Eleanor's use of the language of flowers extended beyond communication to permanent judgment.
3. How does the meaning of dogwood change across the novel?
Dogwood is assigned to Bree as her symbolic tree, carrying meanings of reliability, endurance, and love unbroken in adversity, with an additional layer of rebirth. Francine notes that one dogwood grows over Bree's grave, and she wonders whether Eleanor intended the rebirth meaning when she planted it. In the epilogue, the dogwood's protective presence over the memorial bed reinforces its association with Bree's enduring love for her sisters, even beyond death.
4. Why does Francine spare the memorial flower bed when she destroys the rest of the garden?
Francine's five-day destruction of the garden is driven by her need to find her sisters' bodies and confirm her theory about George's guilt. But the memorial bed stops her. She recognizes it as Eleanor's language-of-flowers tribute to her lost children—more personal and descriptive than any photograph could have been. Digging it up would mean destroying the only tangible record of her siblings' personalities. Her decision to spare it marks a shift from obsessive investigation to respect for her mother's grief and her sisters' memory.