Lincoln and flowers

[Eva Elisabeth]

(07-14-2020 06:41 AM)Rob Wick Wrote:  Has anyone ever come across any stories that mention what type of flowers that Lincoln liked? Off the top of my head I can't think of any. I know that some relate the assassination to lilacs given Walt Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in Dooryard Bloom'd." I just can't remember if it ever came up.

Best
Rob

Rob, there was a quote by Lincoln - I think reported by Elizabeth Edwards - that flower and sunsets meant nothing to him. I can't find it right now (was only in one or two books) but will try again tomorrow. He also had zero interest in gardening in Springfield.

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I can't find the online "Herndon's Informants", however, it's cited here:
"Sister-in-law Elizabeth Todd Edwards told Lincoln biographer and law partner William Herndon about the President’s first visit to the conservatory. She visited the White House after Willie Lincoln’s death in February 1862: “One day while there in order to calm his mind, to turn his attention away from business and cheer him up, I took Mr. Lincoln down through the conservatory belonging to the Executive Mansion, and showed him the world of flowers represented there. He followed me patiently through. ‘How beautiful these flowers are! How gorgeous these roses! Here are exotics,’ I exclaimed in admiration, ‘gathered from the remotest corners of the earth, and grand beyond description.’ A moody silence followed broken finally by Mr. Lincoln with this observation: ‘Yes, this whole thing looks like spring; but do you know I have never been in here before. I don’t why it is so, but I never cared for flowers; I seem to have no taste, natural or acquired, for such things.'”5
http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/resi...d-edwards/
For sure there was another similar quote that included the (meaningless) sunsets.