Flower

Flowers within art are also representative of the female genitalia, as seen in the works of artists such as Georgia O'Keefe, Imogene Cunningham, and Judy Chicago. Beginning in the 1990s and especially in the 2000s the usage became common among young people, who may or may not link the term to homosexuality. Some of the more common examples include:. This usage has its origins in the 1980s, when homosexuality had already become mainstream but was still taboo. The practice of assigning meanings to flowers is known as floriography. The derogatory implication is that the object (or person) in question is inferior, worthless, effeminate, or stupid. Many flowers have important symbolic meanings in Western culture. "that film was so gay"), the term gay is purely pejorative and can be deeply offensive.

To get flowers that are out of season in their country, florists contact wholesalers who have direct connections with growers in other countries to provide those flowers. When used with a derisive attitude (e.g. Florists depend on an entire network of commercial growers and shippers to support this trade. By contrast, using gay in the pejorative sense, to describe something solely as negative, can cause offense. Around the world, florists sell flowers for a wide range of events and functions that, cumulatively, encompass one's lifetime:. Using the term gay as an adjective where the meaning is akin to "related to gay people, culture, or homosexuality in general" is a widely accepted use of the word. In modern times, people have sought ways to cultivate, buy, wear, or just be around flowers and blooming plants, partly because of their agreeable smell. This usage pre-dates the association of the term with homosexuality, but has acquired different connotations since the modern usage developed.

The Greek goddess of spring, flowers and nature is Chloris. Using it to describe an object, such as an item of clothing, suggests that it is particularly flamboyant, often on the verge of being gaudy and garish. The Roman goddess of flowers, gardens, and the season of Spring is Flora. For example, while a gay bar is not itself homosexual, using gay as an adjective to describe the bar indicates that the bar is either gay-oriented, caters primarily to a gay clientele, or is otherwise part of gay culture. Ah, Sun-flower weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done:

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go. The term gay can also be used as an adjective to describe things related to gay people or things which are part of gay culture. Famous examples include and William Wordsworth's I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud and William Blake's Ah! Sun-Flower:. But other advocates insist that all LGBT people (and perhaps their allies), are part of a global community, in one way or another.

The great variety of delicate and beautiful flowers has inspired the works of many poets, especially from the Romantic era. As a result, some analysts question the notion of sharing a "community" with people one has never actually met (whether in person or remotely). Main and related articles at: Gardening, Horticulture, List of flowers, and Floristry. Some LGBT people are entirely geographically or socially isolated from other LGBT people, or don't feel their social connections to their LGBT friends are different from those they have with straight friends. Instead the allergen is usually the pollen of the contemporary bloom of anemophilous ragweed (Ambrosia) which can drift for many kilometers. Some people (including many mainstream American journalists) interpret the phrase "gay community" to mean "the population of gay people". For example the showy and entomophilous goldenrod (Solidago) is frequently blamed for respiratory allergies, of which it is innocent, since its pollen cannot be airborne. In other cases, the speaker may be referring only to gay men.

There is much confusion about the role of flowers in allergies. Just as the word "gay" is sometimes used as shorthand for "gay, lesbian, and bisexual" and possibly also "transexual" and others, so "gay community" is sometimes a synonym for "LGBT community" or "Queer community". Honeybees and bumblebees actively gather anemophilous corn (maize) pollen, though it is of little value to them. The notion of the gay community is complex and slightly controversial. Whereas the pollen of entomophilous flowers tends to be large grained, sticky, and contain significant protein (another "reward" for pollinators), Anemophilous flower pollen is usually small grained, very light, and of little nutritional value to insects, though it may still be gathered, in times of dearth. Main article: Gay community. Wind pollinated flowers are referred to as anemophilous. The term lesbian, however, is exclusively female.

Other flowers are pollinated by the wind, and the flowers of these species (for example, grasses) have no need to attract pollinators and therefore tend not to be "showy". It is commonly used to refer specifically to gay men; the precise meaning may need to be made clear from context. Some plants, such as Rafflesia, the titan arum, and the North American pawpaw (Asimina triloba) are pollinated by flies, so produce a scent imitating rotting meat. Some trans and intersexed individuals find their inclusion in this larger grouping to be offensive. Flower scent is not always pleasant to our sense of smell. The term also sometimes includes transgender, transsexual, and intersexual. In gathering nectar from many flowers of the same species, the pollinators transfer pollen between all of the flowers it visits. More rarely, it is used as a shorthand for terms queer or gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc.

The arrangement of the stamens ensures that pollen grains are transferred to the bodies of the pollinator. Sometimes the term gay is used to describe both same-sex male and same-sex female relations. In any case, pollinators are attracted to the plant, perhaps in search of nectar, which they eat. According to the Safe Schools Coalition of Washington's Glossary for School Employees:. Flowers also attract pollinators by scent. Conversely, some people find the term gay to be offensive or reject it as an identity-label because they perceive the cultural connotations to be undesirable or because of the negative connotations of the slang usage of the word. Some flowers have patterns, called nectar guides, that are evident in the ultraviolet range, visible to bees but not to humans. They believe it is too focused on physical acts rather than romance or attraction, or too reminiscent of the era when homosexuality was considered a mental illness.

Bees and birds are common pollinators: both have color vision, thus selecting for "colorful" flowers. Some people reject the term homosexual as an identity-label because they find it too clinical-sounding. Flowers commonly have glands called nectaries on their various parts that attract these animals. The process is fairly complex, and many groups related to gay people cite inadvertent heterosexism as a leading problem for those that would otherwise self-identify. Flowers that are insect pollinated are called entomophilous (literally "insect loving"). Self-identification of one's sexual orientation is becoming far more commonplace in areas of increased social acceptance, but many are either reluctant to self-identify publicly or even privately to themselves. Many flowers in nature have evolved to attract animals to pollinate the flower, the movements of the pollinating agent contributing to the opportunity for genetic recombinations within a dispersed plant population. Some same-sex oriented persons prefer 'homosexual' as an identity over 'gay', seeing the former as describing a sexual orientation and the latter as describing a cultural or socio-political group with which they do not identify.

The period of time during which this process can take place (the flower is fully expanded and functional) is called anthesis. Still others might consider gay and bisexual to be mutually exclusive. Others rely on animals (especially insects) to accomplish this feat. Further, a bisexual person may identify as gay while maintaining a monogamous relationship with a member of the opposite sex. Many flowers are dependent upon the wind to move pollen between flowers of the same species. Possible choices include identifying as gay socially while choosing to be celibate or while anticipating a first homosexual experience. The process is termed pollination. Conversely, a person may identify as gay without engaging in homosexual sex.

The function of a flower is to mediate the union of male and female gametes. If a person has had same-sex sexual encounters but does not self-identify as gay, terms such as 'closeted', 'on the down low', 'discreet', or 'bi-curious' may be applied. Several other symbols are used that will have to await drawings to illustrate here (see [1]). By using these definitions, a person could be gay and not homosexual, or homosexual and not gay. A floral formula would appear something like this:. Others consider gay to be a matter of self-identification and homosexual to refer to sexual activity or to sexual attraction that is predominantly to members of the same sex. x - to represent a "variable number"
∞ - to represent "many"
. Some people consider gay and homosexual to be synonyms.

Ca⁵ = 5 sepals)
Co = corolla (petal whorl; e.g., Co^3(x) = petals some multiple of three )
    Z = add if zygomorphic (e.g., CoZ⁶ = zygomorphic with 6 petals)
A = androecium (whorl of stamens; e.g., A^∞ = many stamens)
G = gynoecium (carpel or carpels; e.g., G¹ = monocarpous)
. See sex for a discussion of sex and gender. Ca = calyx (sepal whorl; e.g. Sexual orientation, behavior, and self-identification are not necessarily aligned in a clear-cut fashion for a given individual. The following representations are used:. Overview article: Terminology of homosexuality. Typically, a general formula will be used to represent the flower structure of a plant family rather than a particular species. The term also seems, from documentary evidence, to have existed in New York as a code word in the 1940s, where the question, "Are you gay?" would denote more than it might have seemed to outsiders.

A floral formula is a way to represent the structure of a flower using specific letters, numbers, and symbols. Another folk etymology accrues to Gay Street, a small street in the West Village of New York City — a nexus of homosexual culture. Each small flower may be anatomically as described above. It has been claimed that "gay" was derived as an acronym for "Good As You", but this is a backronym (based on a fake etymology). In botanical terminology, a single daisy or sunflower for example, is not a flower but a flower head—an inflorescence comprised of numerous small flowers (sometimes called florets). It is sometimes used as a singular noun, as in "he is a gay", such as in its use by the Little Britain comedy character Daffyd Thomas (a gay man who believes himself "the only gay in the village" despite abundant evidence to the contrary). In this sense, care must be exercised in considering what is a flower. Gay can be also used as a plural collective-like noun: "Gays are opposed to that policy"; although this usage may be deprecated by some, it is common [4] particularly in the names of various organizations such as PFLAG: (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere).

In those species that have more than one flower on an axis, the collection of flowers is termed an inflorescence. Gay was originally used purely as an adjective ("he is a gay man" or "he is gay"). Additional discussions on floral modifications from the basic plan are presented in the articles on each of the basic parts of the flower. The camp implications of the concept were explicit in the ludicrous pastiche of Coward's style epitomised by the title song:. The latter flower types, which have chemical barriers to their own pollen, are referred to as self-sterile or self-incompatible (see also: Plant sexuality). By 1968 mainstream audiences were expected to recognise the double entendre in the ultra-camp musical entitled Springtime for Hitler: a gay romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchesgarten — which formed part of the plot of the film The Producers. Unisexual male and female flowers on the same plant may not appear at the same time, or pollen from the same plant may be incapable of fertilizing its ovules. By 1963, the word "gay" was known well enough by the straight community to be used by Albert Ellis in his book The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Man-Hunting.

Conversely, many species of plants have ways of preventing self-fertilization. The illness of homosexuality was removed from the DSM in 1973, but the clinical connotation of the word was already embedded in society. The extreme case of self-fertilization occurs in flowers that always self-fertilize, such as the common dandelion. "Homosexual" was perceived as excessively clinical: especially since homosexuality was at that time designated as a mental illness, and "homosexual" was used by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) to denote men affected by this "mental illness". Some flowers with both stamens and a pistil are capable of self-fertilization, which does increase the chance of producing seeds but limits genetic variation. Gay was the preferred term since other terms, such as "queer" were felt to be derogatory. However, where unisexual male and female flowers appear on the same plant, the species is considered monoecious. The subcultural usage started to become mainstream in the 1960s, when gay became the term predominantly preferred by homosexual men to describe themselves.

In the latter case, if an individual plant is either male or female the species is regarded as dioecious. This range of connotation probably affected the gradual movement of the term towards its current dominant meaning, which was at first confined to subcultures. However, in some species of plants the flowers are imperfect or unisexual: having only either male (stamens) or female (pistil) parts. Other connotations of frivolousness and showiness in dress ("gay attire") led to association with camp and effeminacy. These flowers are described by botanists as being perfect, bisexual, or hermaphrodite. By the mid-century "gay" was well-established as an antonym for "straight" (respectable sexual behavior), and to refer to the lifestyles of unmarried and or unattached people. In the majority of species, individual flowers have both pistils and stamens as described above. It was originally to be called The Gay Divorce after the play on which it was based, but the Hays Office determined that while a divorcee may be gay, it would be unseemly to allow a divorce to appear so.

The number of carpels in a compound pistil may be only two, or otherwise not related to the above generalization for monocots and dicots. The word continued to be used with the dominant meaning of "carefree", as evidenced by the title of the The Gay Divorcee (1934), a musical film about a heterosexual couple. For example, the two subclasses of flowering plants may be distinguished by the number of floral organs in each whorl: dicotyledons typically having 4 or 5 organs (or a multiple of 4 or 5) in each whorl and monocotyledons having three or some multiple of three. While there is much debate about what Grant meant with the ad-lib (the line was not in the script), Grant's Hollywood background should leave little doubt as to what he meant--he knew the connotation of the term, even if the audience did not. These modifications have significance in the evolution of flowering plants and are used extensively by botanists to establish relationships among plant species. When another character inquires about his clothes, he responds "Because I just went gay...all of a sudden!" [3] However, since this was a mainstream film at a time when the use of the word to refer to homosexuality would still be unfamiliar to most film-goers, the line can also be interpreted to mean "I just decided to do something frivolous". Although the floral structure described above is considered the "typical" structural plan, plant species show a wide variety of modifications from this plan. In a scene where Cary Grant's clothes have been sent to the cleaners, he must wear a lady's feathery robe.

The four main parts or whorls (starting from the base of the flower or lowest node and working upwards) are as follows:. Bringing Up Baby (1938) was the first film to use the word gay in apparent reference to homosexuality. The parts of a flower are arranged in whorls on the torus. Other usages at this date involve some of the same ambiguity as Coward's lyrics. The stem is called a pedicel, the end of which is the torus or receptacle. Because of its continuation of these public usages and conventions – in a mainstream musical – the precise connotations of the word in this context remains ambiguous. In essence, a flower structure forms on a modified shoot or axis with an apical meristem that does not grow continuously (growth is determinate). The song also drew on familiar satires on Wilde and Aestheticism dating back to Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience (1881).

A flower is regarded as a modified stem (Eames, 1961) with shortened internodes and bearing, at its nodes, structures that may be highly modified leaves. However, the phrase "gay nineties" was already well-established as an epithet for the decade (a film entitled The Gay Nineties; or, The Unfaithful Husband was released in the same year). Flowering plants are heterosporangiate (producing two types of reproductive spores) and the pollen (male spores) and ovules (female spores) are produced in different organs, but these are together in a bisporangiate strobilus that is the typical flower. The song title alludes to Oscar Wilde, who famously wore a green carnation, and whose homosexuality was well known. . In the song "Green Carnation", four overdressed, 1890s dandies sing:. After fertilization, portions of the flower develop into a fruit containing the seeds. The 1929 musical Bitter Sweet by Noel Coward contains another use of the word in a context that strongly implies homosexuality.

For the higher plants, seeds are the next generation, and serve as the primary means by which individuals of a species are dispersed across the landscape. Skeene (1922) is possibly the first traceable published use of the word to refer to a homosexual relationship, though it is not altogether clear whether she uses the word to mean lesbianism or happiness:. The flower structure contains the plant's reproductive organs, and its function is to produce seeds through sexual reproduction. A passage from Gertrude Stein's Miss Furr & Mrs. A flower (<Old French flo(u)r<Latin florem<flos), also known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Magnoliophyta, also called angiosperms). Well into the mid 20th century a middle-aged bachelor could be described as "gay" without prejudice. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York. It was initially more commonly used to imply heterosexually unconstrained lifestyles, as for example in the once-common phrase "gay Lothario",[2] or in the title of the book and film The Gay Falcon (1941), which concerns a womanising detective whose first name is "Gay".