What Is the Meaning of White Lilly?
What Is the Meaning of White Lilly?. The white lily is a flower familiar to most, both because of its beauty and because of the rich symbolic meaning various cultures have given to it.
The white lily is a flower familiar to most, both because of its beauty and because of the rich symbolic meaning various cultures have given to it.
The white lily's scientific name is Lilium candidum. According to its USDA PLANTS profile, it's a member of the lily family (Liliaceae) and genus (Lilium). It is a six-petaled flower with six stamens, white in color with yellow at the base of each flower. Desert Tropicals states that it originates from the Balkans and Middle East.
The white lily is also commonly referred to as the Madonna Lily and is strongly associated with the purity of the Virgin Mary, especially in Roman Catholicism.
Some scholars, including Abraham Bin Ezra, assert that the word "shoshannah" in the biblical Song of Songs refers to the white lily, and not to a rose as is commonly thought. Thus, the narrator describes his love's exceptional beauty by saying, "As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters."
The Victorians assigned detailed meanings to all common flowers and used them to communicate with each other. In her book "The Language of Flowers", Kate Greenaway listed the white lily as representing purity, modesty, and sweetness.
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