In This Petal Poem Game, Say It With Flowers
On Valentine’s Day, what could be better than a puzzle that combines flowers, poetry and secret codes?
Credit.Andrew Dore and Robert Vinluan
By Sam Von Ehren, Andrew Dore and Robert Vinluan
Feb. 13, 2021
In Victorian England, flowers were sometimes used as a form of coded communication to express feelings that could not be spoken aloud. Each bloom was said to have a specific meaning for example, daisies conveyed innocence, while tulips were a declaration of love and a bouquet might be assembled to send a secret message to the recipient. This game uses flower names as a phonetic alphabet, like the well-known NATO alphabet, where each letter is assigned a word from Alfa to Zulu. A poet thinks of a four-letter word and describes it in couplets, others try to guess the subject, framing their answers in flower code. Try your Buttercup Echinacea Sunflower Tulip.