Poignant petals
ON TUESDAY, as they do every Valentine's Day, romantics will descend on flower sellers in search of a single bloom: the red rose. For centuries, its crimson petals have been associated with passion — the stronger the affection, the deeper the hue of its petals — while the stages of its flowering were thought to parallel those of womanhood — rosebuds for a girl and full blooms for a woman in her prime.
Yet few realise that according to a centuries-old "language of flowers", the red rose is but one of myriad expressions of passion. Suitors throughout the ages have sent bouquets
