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Roses, lilies, ivy, oak, palm, wheat and the creatures that appear with them — and the part of cemetery symbolism where confident online answers are least reliable. The Victorian language of flowers was a parlour fashion published in competing dictionaries that contradicted one another, and applying it retrospectively to carved stone as though mason and family shared a code is the commonest interpretive error in the subject. Some motifs here do have documented associations that predate floriography entirely: the lily is a medieval Marian attribute, the palm is a Roman victory emblem, and a rose with a cut stem correlates with recorded ages on surveyed stones. The records say which is which.
The Victorian practice of assigning meanings to flowers — and why it is a poor key to gravestone carving.
A rose carved on a monument, sometimes shown with a broken stem.
A trumpet-shaped lily carved on a monument.
Trailing ivy carved winding across a monument.
Oak leaves and acorns carved on a monument.
A long feathered palm leaf carved on a monument.
A circular garland of leaves or flowers, carved or laid on a memorial.
A small five-petalled flower carved on a memorial.
A butterfly carved on a monument, most often a child's.
An anchor carved on a monument.
Ears or a sheaf of wheat carved on a monument.
A scallop or cockle shell carved on a monument.