Birth Flowers by Month: 12 Lists Compared

Birth flowers by month: January carnation, February violet, March daffodil, April daisy, May lily of the valley, June rose, July larkspur, August gladiolus, September aster, October marigold, November chrysanthemum, December narcissus. Each of those flowers appears on 11 or 12 of the 12 lists we read.

Most lists add a second flower to every month, and those second flowers mostly match. We read 12 pages on October 19, 2026 to see where they split.

What are the birth flowers for each month?

The table shows how many of the 12 pages name each flower, so a main flower marked 12 is named on every page we read. ELLE Decor lists one flower per month. Carithers does too, except in April, where it pairs daisy and sweet pea.

Three single pages differ on the main flower. Flowers for Dreams gives May as "lilies". Bloom & Wild writes delphinium for July. Alpha Floral lists only holly for December.

Why does each month have two birth flowers?

Four pages point to place or season. Farmgirl Flowers says most months have two "because different regions and eras favored different flowers and seasonal availability varied." Alpha Floral and the Almanac say the same about regions. The shared reason is practical: one flower may not be in bloom everywhere.

Onecklace adds a timeline. It says "Over time many lists added a second flower for each month, often because the first one does not bloom in every region or season."

At least two pages lean on choice instead. Bloom & Wild says people in Roman and Victorian times "thought having two birth flowers per month was better than one." Welke's Florist says you can pick the one that "totally meshes with your personality."

Only four pages mark flowers as primary and secondary in a month-by-month list: Farmgirl, the Almanac, Ben White Florist and Ace Flowers. The other pages list two flowers and do not rank them.

Where do the 12 lists disagree?

February and November carry most of the disagreement. We also checked July, because Ace Flowers calls it the most disputed month.

February. Violet is on all 12 pages. The second flower splits: primrose on seven pages, iris on three (Welke's, Bloom & Wild and Fig & Bloom). Carithers and ELLE Decor list violet alone.

November. Chrysanthemum is on all 12. Peony shows up on three pages (Welke's, Onecklace and Ben White Florist). Every other page lists chrysanthemum by itself.

July. Ace Flowers says "July is the most disputed month." Across our 12 pages it looked settled: larkspur on 11, water lily on 10.

Single-flower lists. ELLE Decor prints one flower per month, and Carithers does the same apart from April. Both match the main flower in our table.

Is there an official birth flower list?

No. Ace Flowers says "unlike birthstones, birth flowers were never standardised by anybody." It says the American National Retail Jewelers Association fixed the birthstone list in 1912, "but there is no governing body for flowers and never has been." So there is no official list, and each page picks its own.

The Almanac says "Not all cultures agree on which flowers correspond to which months, plus some flowers simply aren't as available in different regions." Flowers for Dreams puts it shorter: "Birth month flowers are symbolic, not rules."

That is why Fig & Bloom can say of a month's primary flower and its alternative, "Either is a perfectly valid choice." If two lists differ, nobody is in charge of ruling one wrong.

If you want the stone version of the same gift, see our birthstone necklace picks. That guide carries Etsy affiliate links. This page has none.

Where do birth flowers come from?

Three pages point to ancient Rome and Victorian England: Farmgirl, Bloom & Wild and Ace Flowers. Ace gives the most detail. It says the Roman side is birthday celebrations called natalis, and that Pliny the Elder's Natural History, finished around 77 CE, discusses many of the flowers later tied to the calendar.

The month-by-month list came later. Ace says it took shape in Victorian England through the language of flowers, and that "American florists in the early twentieth century settled the popular pairings." Its summary: "It's a Victorian construction with an American finish, wearing a Roman costume."

The Almanac is vaguer. It says "Birth flowers have been around for many generations, similar to birthstones." No page names the person who wrote the first list.

What do the birth flowers mean?

Six flowers carry the same core meaning on all four pages that give meanings: carnation (love), violet (loyalty or faith), daffodil (new beginnings or rebirth), daisy (innocence), lily of the valley (happiness) and gladiolus (strength). The other six hold on three pages each. For December, only three pages give a meaning for narcissus, and all three say hope or rebirth.

Four pages give meanings: Farmgirl, the Almanac, Bloom & Wild and Ben White Florist. The table compares them.

Ace Flowers says Victorian floriography assigned these meanings. If you write a card, use the meaning that fits the person, because the pages offer more than one.

Which flower should you pick for a gift?

This part is our advice, not something the lists say.

Name a flower nearly every list names. For February that is violet, and for November it is chrysanthemum. Peony is on only three pages for November, so it is the riskier name if the recipient looks it up.

Use the second flower when it suits the person. Which one you pick is up to you, because no list is official.

Write the flower's name and one meaning in your own words on the card. The pages vary, so a meaning you copy from one list can differ from the next page the recipient finds. Our birthday card guide has lines to start from.

For something to go with the flower, a small personalized piece fits well. See our Etsy birthday gift picks, our personalized gifts guide and our personalized jewelry picks. Those guides carry Etsy affiliate links.

Start with the card, and name the flower on it.

Want the flowers as art files?

We sell a set of these flowers as line art. Full disclosure: we run the Etsy shop HappyVectorClub, and the set is ours. The link goes straight to the listing and is not an affiliate link. If you buy, the sale is ours.

24 Birth Month Flower SVG bundle has 24 hand-drawn line-art flowers, two per month, as SVG and transparent PNG files, with the month names in script. The files suit Cricut and Silhouette cutting, sublimation and print-then-cut. They are digital downloads, so nothing ships.

Our set pairs violet with iris for February. Three of the 12 lists in this guide do the same, and primrose is more common (seven lists).

How we compared the lists

We took the 8 organic results Google showed in the US for "birth flowers by month" and the 5 more pages its AI answer cites. One of the 13, myglobalflowers.com, returned a 404, so it is not counted. Nine of the 12 we read are florists or flower sellers. One is a jewelry seller, Onecklace. Two are publications, The Old Farmer's Almanac and ELLE Decor.

We counted the word each page prints. Plurals are merged, and "Cosmo" and "narcissus/paperwhite" count under the usual names. In the meanings table we count near-synonyms as the same word, such as loyalty and faithfulness, so treat those counts as a guide. The counts show who says what, and say nothing about which list is right.