top of page

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

  • Writer's pictureMandira Antar

Tattoo symbols/Sea daffodil (Pancratium maritimum) flower

Updated: Dec 14, 2017


Writing about flowers as a tattoo choice is a vast subject and every blog about tattoos has a wide range of articles on that! There are some flowers though that have uniqueness, beauty and humbleness which make them so interesting to get a closer look at... Not to mention it is a rare tattoo choice!!! And we love those.

Sea daffodil or pancratium maritimum (other vernacular names are sand daffodil, sand lily and lily of St. Nicholas-source wikipedia) is a small wild flower that grows near many Mediterranean and around the Black sea beaches. In Greece it is also called Virgin Mary's Lily because it blossoms in 15th of August, one of the biggest religious celebrations in Greece (the day of the Dormition of Virgin Mary. On the Greek Orthodox calendar this date marks the moment when Mary, Christ’s mother, ascended into Heaven).


It grows in the sand, a characteristic that from the first moment makes this sense, raises this question... how can that be? So small yet so strong and resilient!

It belongs in the general family of Narcissus and Amaryllidaceae. This is why it is often confused with narcissus or daffodils but this is a different flower that has survived for thousand years. The most significant difference is that sand lily is always white in colour, it is wild and does not survive a cut. If you cut it, it will die. So it is meant to decorate nature and not our homes.