A flower to die for

Find the death symbols in this 1914 painting by Polish artist Edward Okuń “Death and the Violin”! Chrysanthemums are the obvious answer, but there’s more. There’s always more because death never walks alone. - From the Arizona State University Art Museum collection

As the last blazing beams of summer sun fade, mums flood the landscape reminding us that the party is coming to a close. So no one should be surprised that chrysanthemums are the official funeral flower for the endlessly bereaved.

Lilies, another popular funeral offering, can symbolize the hope of everlasting life. Roses plead eternal love. But mums? Their long spidery petals even look like tear tracks. They scream “I am too sad for words.”

Okuń’s painting says everything about the proper use of mums. Lavishly deposited across the coffin of a death violinist, the four women (purportedly emblematic of the four women at Christ’s tomb, but let’s leave that for an art historian) sing a dirge as they file by. The last mourner side-eye’s the coffin, possibly concerned about the violinist’s mortal soul, given that violins are the devil’s instrument — according to Charlie Daniels — and any violinist worth his orchestra chair had made a pact with Satan for flying fingers.

These hardy plants are ancient avatars for imperial life in China. And the Japanese find a happier message of life and rebirth in this fall staple although most Asian countries use white mums to symbolize grief.

Japanese artist Kazumasa Ogawa leaned into the traditional with this print of white mums, now in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum collection. White mums focused on the grief of death. Any other color would be symbolic of joy and rebirth, more appropriate for the birth of a child.

Of course none of this explains mums and homecoming corsages, an American tradition which is particularly huge in Texas. Like bigger than your head huge. Since most modern flower symbolism has its roots in the Victorian Language of Flower, something that definitely pre-dates Texas football.

Our best guess of why chrysanthemums are the flower of chose when it comes to this collegiate (and high school) tradition? It’s simply because they’re there. Homecoming, a fall event, coincides with the blooming of these fall flowers.