It is the national flower of my beloved France:  HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS??  I love to learn and I especially love to research when I am learning.  I saw this beautiful flower at my little one’s school and of course knew it was an iris.  Maris remarked upon how pretty it was and I wisely imparted the (very limited) sum total of my knowledge.  I told her they bloomed in the spring and they did not need to be replanted; they would simply come up again the next year.  She seemed impressed so I decided to find out more about this beautiful flower.  I was absolutely floored to discover it was in fact my beloved fleur-de-lis!  For some reason I always thought that was an actual lily.  It of course has been used in French heraldry as a decorative design but has also been a symbol at the time same of religious, political, dynastic, artistic, and emblematic iconography.  The iris! (fleur-de-lis) was the symbol of the Ile-de-France; the core of the French kingdom.  Modern scholarship has established that the fleur-de-lis was a religious symbol before it was a true heraldic one.  In the Middle Ages the symbols of the lily and fleur-de-lis overlapped considerably in Christian art.  French historian Michel Pastoureau says that until about 1300 they were found with depictions of Jesus, but gradually took on Marian symbolism and were associated with the Song of Solomon’s “lily among thorns”, understood as a reference to the Ever Blessed Virgin Mary.  Other scripture in which the lily symbolizes purity and chastity also helped establish the flower as an iconographic attribute of the Virgin.  Images of Mary holding the flower first appeared in the 11th century on coins issued by cathedrals dedicated to her, starting with Notre Dame de Paris in 1146.  A standard portrayal was of Mary carrying the flower in her right hand, just as she is shown in Notre Dame’s Virgin of Paris statue, and in the center of the stained glass rose window (with fleur-de-lis scepter) above its main entrance.  It was also believed that the fleur-de-lis represented the Holy Trinity.  Louis VI and Louis VII started to use the emblem on scepters, connecting their rulership with this symbol of saintliness and divine right.  Until the later part of the 14th century the French royal coat of arms was blue with golden fleur-de-lis.  Charles V changed the design from an all-over scattering of flowers to a group of three in about 1376.  These two coats are referred to in heraldic terminology as France Ancient and France Modern respectively.  In the reign of King Louis IX (St. Louis) the three petals were said to represent faith, wisdom and chivalry, and to be a sign of divine favor bestowed upon France.  During the next century the tradition of Trinity symbolism was established in France.  In the Bible Jesus compares the colors of the “Lilies of the Fields” (probably native iris) favorably to the garments worn by Solomon, a very wealthy and wise King of Israel and also a son of David.  Katherine M. Beals in “Flower Lore and Legend” says:

“As a religious symbol the iris is sacred to the Virgin Mary.  There was once a knight who was not learned, but who was most devout.  He never could remember more than two words of the Latin prayer to the Holy Mother.  These words were ‘Ave Maria’, and he repeated them over and over, night and day, until at last he died and was buried in the chapel-yard of a convent near which he lived.  After a while a strange flower grew on his grave, a fleur-de-lys, which bore on every blossom in golden letters the words ‘Ave Maria’.  The monks, who had held him in contempt during his life, because of his ignorance, opened the grave and were surprised to find the root of the plant resting on the lips of the holy knight, whose body lay in the grave.”

What a wealth of discovery and yet another connection to the Ever Blessed Virgin Mary I never knew — all from pausing to admire this flower’s beauty my Marian child found.  Treasures abound; one only has to notice them.  Ave Maria.