The wisteria is there to welcome them, in all its abundant purple glory. All being English, they are strangers to Italy, but receive a most warm welcome, not the least from the flowers. This meaning is very pertinent in the context of the story, since the flowering wisteria is in full bloom when the four ladies arrive at San Salvatore at the beginning of April. The wisteria stands for welcome, fair stranger. (You can access it for free on Internet Archive here.) It was published in 1868 by Frederick Warne & Co. But I did find it in another A-Z dictionary of the same name.
My beloved Language of Flowers by Kate Greenaway did not have anything on wisteria.
I had to dig around a bit in a few Victorian flower dictionary to find its floriography meaning. “The wisteria was tumbling over itself in its excess of life, its prodigality of flowering, ” Elizabeth von Arnim, The Enchanted April. Imagine it growing all over the medieval castle walls, its branches hanging by your bedroom window! Growing in great big vine-like clusters and filling the air with their sweet fragrance, it’s no wonder that the wisteria would be greatly enticing in that newspaper ad. I knew it was some kind of flower, but I had no idea what it actually looked like! Does it grow in Canada? I think it’s definitely popular in Europe and in Japan, from the images that come up when you Google it. The idea for the umbrella emerged from a sketch in my bullet journal setup for April, and I knew it would go perfectly with the wisteria!Īlright, confession: I’ve never seen wisteria, and I didn’t know what it looked like when I started reading.
The more I read, the more I realized it would be impossible to incorporate ALL the flowers mentioned in the book in my embroidery (unless I worked all year on it!), but the wisteria really stuck with me. I didn’t finish it on time, but I was inspired to create something from it as soon as I read the ad about wisteria and sunshine.
I picked up this charming novel in early April because it was the month’s selection at The Enchanted Book Club. (You can find my full review of the book (really it’s just more gushing) here on Goodreads.)
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