Mixing red and white flowers
Mixing red and white flowers in one bouquet was long avoided on British hospital wards, where nurses and patients read the pair as blood and tears or as a death to come. Putting each color in its own vase settled the matter.
What it may mean
The flowers were fine. The combination was the problem. Records collected by the folklorist Roy Vickery describe nurses who would not let a bunch of red and white flowers stay on a ward, and a retired Scottish nurse who remembered patients muttering that someone would die. Yet the same nurse recalled an easy way out: red blossoms in one vase, white in another, and everyone relaxed. The same stems, separated, said something else. A good deal of life works like that bouquet. Two people who are lovely on their own can be tense together. The fault often lies in the pairing rather than in either part, and sometimes a second vase is all it takes. At many weddings, by contrast, red and white roses share one vase happily.
Depending on how you saw it
A bouquet for a hospital visit
Visitors choose hospital flowers in a hurry, often from a stand by the entrance, and the mixed red-and-white bunch is among the most common on offer. When you visit someone who is unwell, how do you decide what to carry in?
Red and white roses at a wedding
The very pairing that troubled a ward is a favorite in bridal bouquets. The same colors can say opposite things in different rooms. Where does one gesture of yours mean different things to different people?
Black gifts in Persian families
A student from a Persian family explained to a classmate collecting folklore that you never take black gifts or flowers to a hospital patient, as it is an omen the patient will not leave; blue or turquoise is preferred. Which color do you avoid giving, and who taught you?
Why it happens in nature
Red and white is a favorite color mix among florists, so it turned up on wards often. People who passed the rule on explained it as blood and tears or blood and bandages, and patients feared it meant a death on the ward. Where the rule began is not known; records of it come mostly from Britain in the twentieth century.
What folk beliefs say
England (London)
A woman who remembered London in the 1960s was told never to take red and white flowers to anyone in hospital, because together they stand for blood and tears and are very unlucky.
Source: Roy Vickery (compiler), Red and white flowers (Plant-Lore archive) (2021), www.plant-lore.com. View the page
Scotland (Midlothian)
A retired nurse in Penicuik, Midlothian, who started work during the war, said patients were uneasy with red and white flowers in one vase and would mutter that someone would die; separating them into a vase of red and a vase of white was acceptable.
Source: Roy Vickery (compiler), Red and white flowers (Plant-Lore archive) (2021), www.plant-lore.com. View the page
Iran (Persian families)
In Persian families, a student told a collector, you never bring black gifts or flowers to a hospital patient, since it is an omen that the patient will not leave the hospital; blue or turquoise is preferred.
Source: Eliott Lanz (collector), Hospital Flower Taboo (USC Digital Folklore Archive) (2026), folklore.usc.edu. View the page
To reflect on
Which pair of things around you is fine apart but uneasy together?