Preserved in Time: How the Victorians Used Pressed Flowers to Communicate, Commemorate, and Create

Before emojis, memes, and text messages, the Victorians found meaning in petals, stems, and leaves. Pressed flowers—delicate remnants of nature flattened between the pages of books or tucked into albums—were far more than simple crafts. They were tools of expression, deeply entwined with the era’s culture, values, and social norms. From love letters and mourning rituals to scientific study and artistic expression, the Victorian use of pressed flowers reveals a society that looked to nature not only for beauty, but for language, solace, and structure.

A Language of Flowers

One of the most iconic uses of pressed flowers during the Victorian period was to send coded messages. The “language of flowers,” or floriography, was a popular practice in which different blooms symbolized specific emotions or sentiments. A red rose meant passionate love. A pansy conveyed remembrance. A forget-me-not was exactly what it sounded like—a plea to be remembered. With so many social restrictions, particularly for women, this secret floral language allowed people to express feelings they otherwise couldn’t voice openly.

Pressed flowers were ideal for this form of communication. Unlike fresh blooms, they could be included in letters or preserved in albums, allowing their messages to last. A suitor might press a sprig of rosemary—symbolizing loyalty—into a note to a sweetheart. A friend might tuck a violet into a book given as a farewell gift, hoping to convey modest affection or admiration. These small, preserved gestures became powerful symbols of personal connection.

A Hobby Rooted in Sentimentality

Pressed flower art also aligned with Victorian ideals of sentimentality and domesticity. Creating floral albums was a popular pastime, especially for women, who were often expected to remain within the private sphere of the home. These albums were not simply botanical collections—they were personal, emotional keepsakes. Some included poetry or handwritten reflections. Others featured flowers from significant events: a dance, a funeral, a wedding bouquet. Each petal told a story.

Travelers and nature lovers would collect and press flowers from places they visited, essentially creating early scrapbooks of their journeys. A pressed edelweiss from the Alps or a bluebell from the English countryside became a souvenir, preserved for memory and reflection. These albums were sometimes shared with family and friends, offering a glimpse into the creator’s emotional life as well as their travels.

Mourning Through Nature

The Victorians had a famously elaborate relationship with death and mourning, and pressed flowers played a quiet but powerful role in these rituals. After the death of a loved one, mourners often pressed flowers from the funeral or from the grave site and kept them in remembrance. These preserved blooms might be stored in lockets, placed in memory books, or framed alongside a photograph or a lock of hair.

Floral symbolism was deeply integrated into mourning culture. Lilies (purity), cypress (mourning), and black roses (grief or farewell) were among the many flowers that held specific meaning in death. By pressing and preserving these flowers, Victorians kept their grief close—private tokens of love and loss that endured long after the funeral ended.

Science and the Pressed Flower Boom

The Victorian era was also a time of rapid scientific exploration and classification. Natural history became fashionable, and amateur botanists—many of them women—took to the fields with flower presses and journals. Pressing flowers was a practical way to preserve specimens for study, especially before photography became widely accessible.

Women, often excluded from formal scientific institutions, found in botany a socially acceptable way to engage with the sciences. Pressed flower collections were used to study plant anatomy, compare species, and learn taxonomy. Some women built extensive herbaria—botanical archives—that contributed to the broader scientific community.

Even Queen Victoria herself was said to be an avid flower presser, and her example helped further popularize the practice among the upper and middle classes.

Aesthetic Beauty and Artistic Expression

Beyond science and symbolism, pressed flowers became a medium for Victorian artistic expression. Elaborate pressed flower arrangements were used to create greeting cards, bookmarks, decorative panels, and framed art. Some mimicked traditional still-life paintings, while others were abstract or stylized. The care required to press and arrange each flower spoke to Victorian values of patience, delicacy, and attention to detail.

Artists experimented with composition, color, and form, creating visual poetry from nature’s palette. The flowers may have been ephemeral in the garden, but once pressed, they were fixed in time—eternal blossoms that married art and memory.

The Enduring Legacy

Though the height of the pressed flower craze faded by the early 20th century, the legacy of Victorian flower pressing lingers. Today, crafters, artists, and memorialists continue the tradition—preserving bridal bouquets, turning garden blooms into jewelry, and creating herbariums for study or decor. There’s a certain romance to it, a nod to the past that feels both delicate and enduring.

Perhaps that’s the real appeal of pressed flowers. Like the Victorians, we are still searching for ways to hold on to moments, to give shape to feelings we can’t always articulate. And sometimes, the quiet imprint of a flower says more than words ever could.