On Valentine's Day, birthdays, graduations, weddings, any special day, we all "say it with flowers", bestowing our congratulations and love with bouquets and plants. Each blossom has a special association and emotion of its very own. This is a guide to the language of flowers filled with poetry and illustrated with delicate full page water-colours. Pink sprigs of heather stand for "solitude", for that is how they grow on hills and escarpments. For the chrysanthemum, colour matters: red ones say "I love you", blue signifies truth and yellow suggests a fragile romance. Happy are those who receive irises, for good news will soon arrive. Among the many poets whose work accompanies the paintings are Virgil, Shakespeare, Hugo, Rimbaud, Lorca and Beckett.