Gilding Easter lilies

The Baltimore Sun has a piece today on Easter lilies. Apparently, the flowers that you’ll see in churches across the country on Sunday are grown by a few dedicated horticulturalists on the California-Oregon border. Getting the 10 to 15 million sold each year to bloom at the right time is tricky, since Easter can fall […]

The Baltimore Sun has a piece today on Easter lilies.

Apparently, the flowers that you’ll see in churches across the country on Sunday are grown by a few dedicated horticulturalists on the California-Oregon border.

Getting the 10 to 15 million sold each year to bloom at the right time is tricky, since Easter can fall anywhere from March 22 to April 25.


The flowers are laden with religious significance, the Sun reports:

The angel Gabriel is often depicted in art holding out a lily to the Virgin Mary as he announces that she will be the mother of the savior. In other works of art, saints are depicted bringing vases of lilies to Mary and the infant Jesus.

The story is also told that when the Virgin Mary’s tomb was visited three days after her death, her body was gone and white lilies were there in its place.

The pure white petals of the flower symbolized her purity and the golden stamen her soul, and from that legend, perhaps, comes the expression “to gild the lily,” meaning a pointless attempt to improve upon perfection.

Lilies are found in a myth concerning Adam and Eve as well; they are said to have sprung from her tears of remorse as she and Adam were driven from the Garden of Eden.

Photo by the Sun.

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