Roses and lilies
Roses and lilies grow at the Magician’s feet. Waite names them in the Latin of the Song of Songs, flos campi and lilium convallium, the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.
In the tradition
"I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys" is the Song of Songs 2:1 in the King James Bible, and flos campi et lilium convallium is the same line in the Latin Vulgate. Medieval readers took the Song as the love between God and the soul, so the two flowers were read as the soul’s own.
Waite says the flowers are on the Magician to show the culture of aspiration: the garden is tended. In European flower symbolism the red rose stood for love and the white lily for purity.
In the cards
The pairing comes back on the Ace of Pentacles, where roses arch over a garden of white lilies, and in the small emblem on the wall of the Two of Wands.
Sources
- A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910). Waite's own guide to the deck he designed with Pamela Colman Smith, with each card's divinatory meanings.
- Various, The Bible (King James Version 1611; the Latin Vulgate, 4th century). The source of much of the Temple, Eden and Revelation imagery in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
Updated October 9, 2026.
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