Tarot de Marseille Flora

Please chastise me if I've started a thread dealt with elsewhere. Ok, just redirect me, rather than chastise me.

I have always wanted to learn more about the identities of various Marseille flora. What are the species of flowers and plants on these cards? Are they of a species? Or, are they some type of imaginative hybrid invented by the Tarot de Marseille sculptors?

Now, I suppose that such card-features have been touched upon in threads that focus on a particular card; so, perhaps, I'll just have to go about it that way. But, I wondered if we could identify such flora in a more methodical manner? Of course, with the Hadar, he used the Rose as a leitmotif, so I suppose we might define the TdM versions under consideration for uniformity... or not.

I am supposing that such plants and flowers had certain traditional meanings or connotations. I'm darn curious. Besides, I want to add this as another layer to my Minor Arcana layered system. But, most of all, I want to harvest the brilliant, creative, and resourceful minds of this forum.

Anyone interested in a separate thread? If so, analysis by Flora or by card?

I have often thought about this as well, Paul. Unfortunately, I can provide no answers but am interested in the responses from others here. Thanks for starting up this thread.

Yabs

Hmm. Quiet out there. (Present company excepted, of course, Yaboot).


Perhaps, I'll have to let this one go. Of course, this topic may already be covered on a card-by-card basis.

Paul, here's a link to a thread that has a general discussion of Marseille flora. It had started as a discussion on the flora of the 5 of Cups.

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=28945
"Eggplants" thread started by Shallot

If you read French, Klea's book, Au Fil d'Arcane has a lot of detailed discussion on the flora.

Also, in French, Carole Sedillot's Ombres et Lumieres du Tarot .

Both of these authors discuss flora in detail.

My posting this does not indicate that I agree with the philosophy expressed in these books, but I do love much of the interpretational material contained in these discussions.

jmd has some lovely posts on stages of floral development.

I couldn't find the threads, but they are under the Tarot de Marseille Forums.

terri

Don't read French. I could muddle through, I guess.

I had a hidden agenda (that I'll now make explicit)-- I was secretly hoping that someone would take out their trusty Klea or Sedillot or Jodorowsky book and shamelessly quote from it.
Yeah, that's lazy, but you see, once I knew the flower's identity, I swear I'd contribute hours of internet research on the species -- promise!

I guess I'll do key word searches and go about this another way. I'll key word search for jmd's posts. Don't know if he identifies the flora by species or just discusses the general flora in terms of stages of development.

Thanks Rusty Neon for the links. I'll pursue those.
Thanks Yaboot and tmgrl2 for your interest.

Paul Marteau's book is a seminal work on psychological interpretation of the botanical imagery. (He gives his views as to the identity of the flowers in a couple of cases, but his interest is mainly in the flowers and their components metaphorically rather than by reference to species-specific qualities.) Sédillot is also interested in that approach.

In several of these previous links that discussed the flora, I did shamelessly quote from these books. It took up a bit of time and effort to make sure that the translation was true to intent....perhaps you could search through the Marseille threads and happen on a couple of them.

When I have time, I will do so also. Klea and Sedillot discuss the flora, I believe in almost all of the cards.

My readings in Jodo's book have been more cursory.

When I RETIRE, I hope to have more time for these activities instead of stealing them from my husband after work...LOL

terri

If jmd catches these posts before I find the threads, I'll bet he can get his hands on the links that had discussions pertaining to the flora.

Payen's floral might be a fancy decor:

If you come across such details, here's a link that might be helpful:

http://www.camoin.com/en/ancient/payen/_cadres/payen_choix_ini.asp

Regards,

Cerulean

OOh. I'm looking forward to your retirement tmgrl2.
Thanks for kind translations thus far.

Thanks for the continued references, all. When I settle for the weekend, I'll do some thread searches.