Abecedary flower

I don’t think it exists! It is believed to be an error when the original victorian book (Kate Greenaway’s 1885 “The Language of Flowers) was put onto the internet and other websites have just copied the error.

During the Victorian era, the language of flowers was type of Morse code for lovers and friends.

The very first entry entries on the internet text on dozens of web sites today is “Abecedary,” which supposedly connotes “volubility”. (talkativeness)

But as far as I can tell, “Abecedary” has never been the name of a flower, and, significantly, the only Victorian glossaries that include this are apparently Greenaway’s and the 1892 volume. (where parts of the book were ‘stolen’ and copied)

In fact, since I don’t have a copy of the Greenaway book, I can’t swear she includes them. They may well be relics of typographical errors in the 1892 “borrowing” of her work. (Stealing large chunks of another authors work was quite common at that time)

If “Abecedary” is indeed an error, it’s easy to imagine how it happened. A glossary such as Greenaway’s book is itself an abecedary of a sort, an “abecedary”. (which means simply an alphabetical list of words)

It’s entirely possible that the first page of Greenaway’s book contained the word “abecedary,” and someone down the line who didn’t recognize the word took it for the name of a flower and simply made up a “secret meaning” for it.

Please dont waste more of your time searching for this flower as it does not ,and never did exist as far as my reseach shows.

Kiasu