It might appear easy to guess the bleeding heart flower meaning and symbolism because of the way this beautiful flower looks. With its authentic heart-shaped look — responsible for its name — the bleeding heart often symbolizes opposing aspects of life. How so?
Bleeding heart flowers symbolize unrequited love in many Eastern Oriental countries, such as Japan — the flower’s native soil. However, in Western cultures, this flower signifies strong and enduring love. Another contradictory symbolism entails life and death.
In this article, I’ll present the most common bleeding heart flower meanings and symbolisms from both Eastern and Western traditions. I’ll also discuss this flower’s meaning through its original Greek name.
What Do Bleeding Hearts Flowers Symbolize?
There aren’t that many flowers with such an iconic look that everyone can immediately think of at least one meaning or symbolism. Well, bleeding hearts is one of those flowers where one look is all it takes.
With its unique two heart-shaped outer petals, and two white inner petals covering the stamen at the tip of the flower, bleeding hearts inevitably became symbols for many different things. The most important of these is the symbol of love.
Let’s see the most common aspects of our lives that bleeding hearts symbolize.
Unrequited Love
The name bleeding heart helps us understand the meaning behind this symbol. Unrequited love is often painful, and people feel like their hearts are bleeding in those situations.
When the two spurs on the outer petals spread, the stamen really looks like a blood drop coming from the heart.
This symbol was popularized in Japan as an old folktale about two lovers. Unfortunately, it was a one-sided love, and the bleeding heart quickly became a symbol of that turbulent event in the story.
Elegance
The second symbol the bleeding heart flower is known for is its elegance. Bleeding hearts aren’t large flowers, and their tiny yet beautiful looks make them one of the most elegant-looking flowers in the world.
Moreover, bleeding hearts grow horizontally, stacked in a line next to each other. There are usually about ten individual flowers on a stem.
Their elegant design and the way they grow are some of the reasons why people absolutely love to plant them in their gardens.
The symbol of elegance is further enhanced by the bleeding hearts’ color patterns. Even though they look other-worldly, these flowers have subdued hues of (most usually) pink and white colors.
This elegant combination of pink and white makes bleeding hearts perfect gifts for showing how much you love somebody, leading us to our next symbol.
Enduring Love
While some cultures in the Far East, like Japanese culture, connect bleeding hearts with unrequited love, Western cultures see these flowers as the ultimate symbol of enduring love.
In the West, a heart may bleed only for love — metaphorically speaking. So, bleeding heart flowers are often used as wedding decorations to symbolize the love between a couple.
Moreover, this flower is a popular go-to present on Valentine’s Day because of its symbolism.
The main reason this flower is the symbol of enduring love is that those who gift it for this purpose mean to say: “I’ll always love you no matter what until my last breath” (heart bleed).
New Life
Bleeding heart flowers are also a symbol of new life. The main reason for this symbolism (although not the only one) is that this flower starts blooming in the spring. Spring itself symbolizes rebirth and new life, and the same symbolism is used with bleeding hearts.
Another reason we connect this flower with the symbol of new life is that, metaphorically, a heart that bleeds represents renewal. The “blood” in the heart creates new lifeblood and keeps us alive, literally.
Lastly, humans aren’t the only ones who view bleeding heart flowers as life-givers. That’s because many insects and birds, like ants or hummingbirds, feed from this flower’s sweet contents.
Therefore, bleeding hearts are not only a symbol of new life, given their connection with spring, but they’re also a reliable food source for many birds.
Death
Like with love, this flower also symbolizes something quite the opposite of the previous one — death. If we start thinking metaphorically again, the “blood” that’s leaving the “heart” is also taking precious life away from that heart.
As a result, many cultures see this flower as a symbol of death, not life. Additionally, since some variants are completely white, they’re suitable representations of death.
Thus, weddings aren’t the only occasion when people like to use bleeding heart flowers. People often buy these flowers for funerals because of the symbolic elements that connect them to death.
Tenderness
Bleeding heart flowers don’t only look elegant but tender as well. Their pink or white outer petals look fragile, which popularized this symbolism. Moreover, bleeding hearts need plenty of water to survive, making them quite fragile and tender.
Besides their physical qualities, bleeding hearts bear metaphorical tenderness symbolism. They symbolize how tender the human heart is and how easy it is to hurt it. A single blood drop means that once you hurt somebody, it might be too late.
What’s the Meaning Behind Bleeding Heart Flowers?
Like with many other flowers, petal colors can play an important role in providing different flower meanings. This is also the case with bleeding heart flowers.
The two most common bleeding heart colors are:
- Pink
- White
These colors only refer to the outer petals since the inner two are always white.
White bleeding hearts signify calm, formality, and elegance. That’s why white bleeding hearts are perfect for wedding ceremonies.
On the other hand, pink bleeding hearts better represent the image of a bleeding heart. Pink bleeding hearts mean a new beginning, tender love, and strong friendship. So, they might be a perfect gift if you fall into one of these categories.
In the past, people also called this flower Lady in the Bath. It might sound weird, but (again) this flower’s physical look helped form this meaning.
When you pick a bleeding heart flower, spread its outer petals, and turn it upside-down, the two outer petals and their spurs look like a bath. On the other hand, the white pointy inner petals look like “a lady” inside a bathtub.
Meaning of the Original Name
We already discussed the meaning of the English term bleeding heart flower. However, its original Greek name also carries some interesting meanings.
The Greek term for this flower (that’s no longer in use) was Dicentra spectabilis which means Two-spurred (dicentra) and spectacular (spectabilis).
Today, these flowers are classified as Lamprocapnos spectabilis, where the word Lamprocapnos is a combination of shiny or shining and smoke.
Both terms mean something spectacular and wonderful, the strongest meaning associated with bleeding hearts.
The shape didn’t always mean “the heart” but a shining smoke — probably because of the two puffed-up outer petals and two spurs that look like small clouds of smoke.
Bleeding Heart FAQs
The bleeding heart plant is highly toxic. Simply touching the plant can lead to skin irritation, while eating it can cause vomiting, diarrhea, convulsions, and difficulty breathing.
Although the Pacific bleeding heart is known for its toxicity; its root in smaller quantities can have medicinal properties.
Specifically, a tincture made from the plant’s root can help ease the pain of sprains and bruises and it can have a calming effect on the nervous system, which can help alleviate anxiety or insomnia
Bleeding hearts bloom from mid-to-late spring to early summer. They die back during the hotter months, reappearing the next season.
Final Thoughts
Bleeding heart flowers carry meaning and symbolism that are opposite of each other, such as:
- Life and death
- Unrequited and enduring love
Because of their shape, bleeding hearts also stand for:
- Tenderness
- Elegance
- New life
Additionally, bleeding heart flowers mean something spectacular — which is their original Greek name.
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