1. My grandmother grew up in rural Ireland … There were many superstitious beliefs about plants, such as … mimosa was a funeral flower, never given as a gift, and, like lilac, was not to be brought indoors [e-mail, March 2024].

2. My mother was very superstitious about flowers May blossom [Crataegus spp.], lilac [Syringa vulgaris] and mimosa … The mimosa was considered a forewarning of disaster, as I found out to my cost when I purchased a bunch out of my first week’s earnings and it was promptly thrown into the dust bin (much to my disgust), but I never could found out why [Bayswater, London, July 1983].

3. Mimosa (wattle in Australia):
In Australia this was not allowed in the house – no reason given – but she said the logical reason was perhaps that it was heavily covered in pollen [Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, March 1983].

Images:  main, cultivated, Hyde Park, London, April 2015; inset, Westminster Quaker Meeting House, London, March 2015.