Identify the Flower Quiz — 7 Free Questions

Question 1

This vigorous woody climber, trained over pergolas, arches and house fronts, hangs long, dangling chains of scented pea-shaped flowers, usually pale purple, that all open together in late spring in a spectacular curtain. The twining stems thicken like tree trunks and can crush gutters and pipes. The seeds are poisonous.

Question 2

This small, low flower opens goblet-shaped straight from bare ground in very early spring, though a few kinds flower in autumn, in purple, yellow or white, closing again in dull weather. From the long red-orange threads inside one autumn-flowering species comes the world's most expensive spice by weight.

Question 3

This small tropical tree bears clusters of thick, waxy, five-part flowers, usually white with a yellow centre, with an intense sweet perfume that is strongest at night. The bare, blunt, sausage-shaped branches ooze a milky sap. It is planted around temples in Asia, and the flowers are strung into Hawaiian garlands.

Question 4

This small, cheerful lawn flower has a flat yellow button centre ringed by many narrow white ray petals, often flushed pink underneath, on a short leafless stalk. It closes up at night and in dull weather and opens again with the sun. Children thread the stalks into chains.

Question 5

This bushy plant grows from a clump of finger-like tubers and produces big, showy, perfectly symmetrical flower-heads in almost every colour but true blue, from flat singles to tight spherical 'pompons' and huge shaggy 'dinner-plate' forms. It flowers from midsummer until the first frost cuts it down.

Question 6

This is one of the most ancient flowering plants. Its large, cup- or star-shaped flowers of thick, waxy segments evolved to be pollinated by beetles, before bees existed. On the best-known garden trees the pink or white flowers open on bare branches in early spring, before the leaves, and brown quickly if a late frost strikes.

Question 7

This climbing annual, grown up canes and netting, produces clusters of ruffled, butterfly-shaped flowers in soft pastel shades and two-tone mixes, with one of the most powerful, honey-like perfumes of any flower. The more you pick, the more it makes. It is unrelated to the edible kind and its seeds are mildly poisonous.

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About Identify the Flower

Can you name the flower? Each question shows a photograph of a flower and gives three short, easy sentences about it: what it looks like, where it grows, and how it is used or what it stands for, without ever saying its name. You then pick it from four choices, and the answer tells you more.

The flowers are the ones almost everyone has seen: the garden and florist favourites like the rose, the tulip, the lily, the carnation and the chrysanthemum; the field and lawn flowers such as the poppy, the daisy, the dandelion and the bluebell; and flowers with a strong meaning somewhere in the world, like the lotus, the marigold, the jasmine and the cherry blossom.

Part of the fun is learning to read a flower from a few features. How many petals, and are they separate or joined into a trumpet, a cup or a bell? Is there one flower to a stem or a whole head made of many tiny ones? Does it grow from a bulb, a climbing stem, a shrub or a tree? Is it scented, and does the scent get stronger at night? A handful of clues like these usually narrows it down.

Many of these flowers carry a bigger story. Several are national or royal emblems. One set off what is often called the first stock-market bubble. One covered the battlefields of a world war and is now worn to remember the dead. One is a symbol of purity in three religions, and one, in much of Europe, may only be given at a funeral.

The clues never name the flower or use a word that would give it away at once, so getting the answer means recognising the shape and the description rather than reading a label. Every photograph is a freely licensed image from Wikimedia Commons, chosen from public-domain or Creative Commons sources so there is no copyright question, and every fact has been checked. The wording is kept simple, so the quiz plays the same for a keen gardener and for someone who has never grown anything.