I bought this book while tour­ing the US Botan­ic Gar­den in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. last sum­mer. It was in the tiny gift shop and what a sweet find. Writ­ten by sis­ters who grew up in a flower shop in the U.K. near Lon­don, the book is a charm­ing, infor­ma­tive col­lec­tion of sto­ries that explores the sur­pris­ing his­to­ry behind many famil­iar blooms. Rather than being a dry botan­i­cal text­book, it reads like a col­lec­tion of short, engag­ing flower por­traits, mix­ing his­to­ry, folk­lore, sci­ence, and a lot of visu­al beauty.
  • Per­fect for: flower enthu­si­asts, gar­den­ers, flo­ral design­ers, nature lovers, and curi­ous read­ers who enjoy beau­ti­ful­ly illus­trat­ed non-fiction
  • Strengths: engag­ing sto­ry­telling, rich visu­als, approach­able length, and a nice bal­ance between his­to­ry, cul­ture, and beauty
  • Kid-friend­li­ness: best for old­er chil­dren and teens, or as a read-togeth­er, browse-togeth­er book
If you love flowers—or you work with them and want to share deep­er sto­ries with clients, stu­dents, or family—this book is a love­ly, inspir­ing addi­tion to your collection.
Hidden History Book

Who Would Like this Book?

Flower lovers and home gar­den­ers.
If you already love grow­ing or arrang­ing flow­ers, this book deep­ens that con­nec­tion by reveal­ing the sto­ries behind the blooms you han­dle every day. The sis­ters dis­cuss their ori­gins, the mean­ings they hold in var­i­ous cul­tures, and how they’ve evolved.
Fans of nature writ­ing and “beau­ti­ful ref­er­ence” books. It works won­der­ful­ly as a coffee-table–style book you can dip into: read about one flower over tea, then come back lat­er for anoth­er. The tone is acces­si­ble and friend­ly rather than technical.
Any­one curi­ous about botany, his­to­ry, or folk­lore. It’s great for stu­dents and life­long learn­ers, but those who don’t want to wade through heavy aca­d­e­m­ic writing.
Flo­ral design­ers and cre­atives
will appre­ci­ate both the visu­al inspi­ra­tion and the deep­er sto­ries that can be woven into arrange­ments, events, or class­es. It’s espe­cial­ly use­ful if you like to share lit­tle bits of “flower triv­ia” with clients or work­shop students.

Spring Flowers

How Long Is the Book?

It’s a medi­um-length, brows­able vol­ume, not a huge ency­clo­pe­dia.
The text is bro­ken into short sec­tions focused on indi­vid­ual flow­ers or themes, so you can read it in small dos­es with­out los­ing the thread.
The lay­out favors gen­er­ous images and clear spac­ing, mak­ing it feel lighter and more invit­ing than a text-heavy ref­er­ence book.
It’s the kind of book you can com­fort­ably read in a week­end, or treat as a com­pan­ion to pick up when­ev­er you want to learn about a par­tic­u­lar flower.

Sunflowers_hidden_flowers

Why It’s a Good Book

The Bai­ley sis­ters focus on the sto­ries behind flowers—how peo­ple used them, what they sym­bol­ized, leg­ends con­nect­ed to them—so you’re con­stant­ly stum­bling on delight­ful sur­pris­es rather than lists of facts.
They cov­er his­tor­i­cal back­ground
and cul­tur­al mean­ings, and folk­lore with occa­sion­al touch­es on how cer­tain flow­ers are grown or used today. How­ev­er, the caveat to this book is that it is not com­pre­hen­sive. They only chose their favorite flow­ers to fea­ture in the book. These include flow­ers like blue­bells, fox­gloves, daisies, elder­flow­ers, calla lilies, morn­ing glo­ry, pas­sion flow­ers, sun­flow­ers and more!

The writ­ing is clear and approach­able. You don’t need a back­ground in botany to under­stand and enjoy it.
It’s great as a gift
because of its mix of visu­als and storytelling.

Where to Buy

The Hid­den His­to­ries of Flowers
You might also like their book about House Plants: The Hid­den His­to­ries of House­plants: Fas­ci­nat­ing Sto­ries of Our Most-Loved Houseplants

Hidden History Book