Victorians Used Flowers to Send Secret Messages Victorians elevated floriography to an art form and created bouquets to say things that could not be said aloud in polite society. Author: Courtesy of Dumbarton Oaks Archives Victorians elevated floriography to an art form and created bouquets to say things that could not be said aloud in polite society. When people get a bouquet of flowers today, the first thing they generally reach for is a vase to put them in. In Victorian times, people reached for their floral dictionary to decipher what secret message the flowers were saying. From the simple daisy to the complex dahlia, flowers of every type have captivated for thousands of years, and the symbolic language of flowers has been recognized for centuries in many countries throughout Europe and Asia. Mythologies, folklore, sonnets, and plays of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Chinese are peppered with flower and plant symbolism, and nearly every sentiment can be expressed with flowers.