Orange Lilies symbolize peace, harmony, joy, wealth, hatred and disdain, friendship, passionate love, admiration, status, tenacity, strong will, and new beginnings.
Lilies have a rich history in many cultures. Many traditions and beliefs about this flower come from ancient mythology and the Christian religion.
Orange Lily Meaning and Symbolism
1. Peace, Harmony, and Joy
Many orange flowers symbolize beautiful emotions such as love, peace, harmony, and joy. Flowers call to mind happiness with their bright orange and pink colors. What can be more pleasing than beholding the scenic beauty of these flowers?
2. Wealth
Orange lilies, especially the tiger lily, can also symbolize wealth. The spots of this flower look like coins, making us think of abundant wealth that ‘grows on trees’.
3. Disdain
The most extreme meanings of this flower are hatred and disdain. You might want to think twice before giving these flowers to someone.
4. Friendship and Love
Some people associate orange lilies with friendship due to their color. Orange is often seen as a color of friendship. Furthermore, all lilies represent love, so you may also use these to show your love for someone else.
5. Status
The orange lily means that the holder is a notable or highly regarded individual. People often use this flower to express admiration and respect. This may be particularly true in the Netherlands, where orange is the color of royalty.
6. Tenacity and Strong Will
These lilies grow wild in areas where many other plants and flowers will not grow. They appear to be a hardy and strong flower. For that reason, they symbolize tenacity and strong will.
7. New Beginnings
Orange lilies are usually presented as a gift when one wants to extend their good wishes or congratulations.
Occasions that warrant orange lilies that carry plenty of meaning include personal achievements such as retirement, the beginning of a new job, moving into a new home, or purchasing a new car.
About The Orange Lily
The orange lily is officially known as Lilium bulbiferum. Common names include tiger lily and fire lily. This herbaceous plant is a European lily that bears underground bulbs.
Orange lilies are widely distributed in Europe. You can find it growing on hillsides and mountain meadows. They grow best in sunny places where the soils are slightly acidic.
Tiger lilies are beautifully orange flowers with dark spots.
Where Do Lilies Come From?
As with meanings in every other form, before understanding the meaning and symbolism of lilies, it’s essential to know where the flowers come from.
There appear to be between 80 and 100 species of lilies grown natively worldwide. The flowers are common in the Northern Hemisphere in areas with more balmy temperatures, like Asia, Europe, and North America.
Originally, people believed that lilies only grew in forests, grasslands, marshes, and mountains. However, these flowers can now grow from a bulb and will likely thrive almost anywhere, making them and their symbolism universal.
True lilies are very durable flowers and have appeared multiple times throughout human history. Ancient Egyptians believed the flower to be sacred, while Romans used their petals to fill their pillows.
What Does ‘Lily’ Mean?
The word ‘lily’ comes from the Old English phrase lilie, which comes from the Latin term Lilium and the Greek Ieirion. All of these refer to the flower.
‘Lily’ became a popular girl’s name worldwide in recent years. Names like Susanna, Susan, and Suzette are also popular and mean ‘lily’!
What Do Lily Flowers Mean?
Lilies have an association with love, devotion, purity, and fertility. The sweet and innocent beauty of the flower has ensured it remains tied to the ideas of fresh new life and rebirth.
While the above meanings are standard associations across the lily family, the symbolism of the flower can vary slightly depending on its color.
Lilies in Ancient Greece
Plenty of the modern-day meanings we attach to different objects originates in the mythology passed on to us thousands of years ago.
The mythology linked to lilies commonly dates back to the story of Zeus and Hera, which expresses the meanings of rebirth and fertility that it still holds today.
According to mythology, Zeus wanted his son Hercules to drink some of Hera’s milk. However, because Hercules was born of another woman, Hera refused to feed the child her milk. Sneakily, Zeus then brought the baby to Hera to drink her milk while she was asleep.
When she woke up and realized what was happening, she pushed them both away.
In that story, the drops of milk that fell onto the ground grew into the beautiful white lilies we know today.
The Meaning of Lilies in Christianity
Lilies are perhaps best known for their association with funerals. In Christian tradition, these flowers had a link with the resurrection of Jesus and, therefore, with rebirth. It’s not very surprising that they became a standard flower to send or display after a person had died. They represent the innocence that the deceased has lost in life but regained in death.
The Meaning of Lilies Throughout History
In Victorian England, the lily had a profound link with death, but perhaps as much for pragmatic reasons as for spiritual ones. Since people would die and remain at home until their funerals, the lily’s strong scent was a logical and popular choice for a funerary flower.
It’s not been all doom and gloom for the lily, though. There’s a strong cross-cultural tendency to use lilies at weddings, maybe because of their religious meanings. Greek and Roman brides would wear crowns of lilies as signs of purity and fertility.
Lilies are also a popular choice for weddings in China. They symbolize women, beauty, purity, and motherly love. Some believe that they bring the couple sons. Polynesian weddings feature lilies, as well.
Finally, they’re the flower of 30th anniversaries, signifying devotion.
The Significance of the Tiger Lilies
The tiger lily is the common name for the plant Lilium lancifolium (L. tigrinum). It is a species of lily indigenous to parts of Asia such as China, Japan, Korea, and the Russian Far East. You can also find it growing in many parts of eastern North America, where it became naturalized.
They cultivate lilies for ornamental purposes, and their unique features distinguish them from other lilies and other similarly colored flowers. There are five species of tiger lilies.
Tiger lilies are orange flowers with black spots on the top side of the petals. The bright orange color and black and orange combination make it a showy and unique flower.
As you might have guessed, the tiger lily colors are much like the animal where its name originated from. Tigers are bright and fiery animals with orange and black. The difference is that the animal has black stripes, while the flower has black spots.
Besides their ornamental value, tiger lilies are also popular in herbalism and alternative medicine. They produce remedies that relieve nasal congestion and nausea. Be careful, however, with the pollen because it can be toxic.
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Conclusion
Most orange lilies are associated with positive things. It depends on the culture, context, and type of orange lily. Flowers are popular to convey emotions and represent different human experiences.
Although the most extreme meanings of orange lilies include hatred and disdain, they generally have associations with pride, assertiveness, confidence, and wealth.
I’m Chris and I run this website – a resource about symbolism, metaphors, idioms, and a whole lot more! Thanks for dropping by.