Through the ages, people have given flowers and gifts symbolic meanings. From these meanings, a language of flowers and gifts has evolved. Ancient Greeks dedicated flowers and gifts to the gods and crowned people of notoriety with wreaths of blossoms and leaves.  The French and English, who had been travelling to Turkey in the mid eighteenth century, brought to their homelands the concept of a language of flowers and gifts. During the 1800's, there were books and dictionaries on fluorography - the science of sweet things. These books were compiled of drawings of flowers and their meanings. The arrangements and compositions of flowers and gifts were as significant as the meanings. For example, a marigold alone meant grief; however, if it were brought together with a rose, it expressed the bittersweets or pleasant pains of love. There were, too, basic grammar rules of fluorography as explained in a book that was written in the 1800's called The Language of Flowers. One such rule stated "The expression of every flower may thus be varied by varying its state or position...." In other words, depending on how the flower was drawn it could have several different meanings. From all of the books that were written, the only thing that seemed to be consistent was the fact that they did not always agree on meanings or rules which in turn only added to the romance of flowers and gifts.  In Colonial times, nosegays or tussie mussies as they were called were given as gifts. Here too, the different herbs and flowers symbolized different things. Imagine receiving a small bouquet of violets and knowing that the person giving them to you was pledging their loyalty without uttering a word. It was common practice at the beginning of a courtship in the Victorian era for suitors to give their intended a tussie mussie. The types of flowers often changed as the relationship grew allowing the gentleman to say volumes without speaking a word! Today's society is no different than those of a few hundred years ago. Flowers and gifts still hold significant a meaning.