We'd like to use analytics cookies to understand which symbols people look up, so we know what to research next. They are not used for advertising and we set none of them unless you say yes. What we store.
A stylised lily of three petals bound at the base, long used in French heraldry.
Also known as: Fleur de lys, Lily flower symbol
Three petals, the outer two curving away, bound by a horizontal band. It is one of the oldest and most widely borrowed devices in European heraldry, and its association with the French monarchy is what most later uses are drawing on.
A stylised lily used as a heraldic charge, most strongly associated with the French monarchy and with France generally.
Adopted very widely beyond France — in the arms of cities, in scouting, in sporting emblems and in the flags of Quebec and of New Orleans — usually invoking the French association rather than a heraldic claim.
What plant it depicts is unsettled. Lily and iris are both long-argued, and the name says lily while the shape argues for iris.
A genuine and long-standing scholarly disagreement about the device's botanical origin.
Three tapering petals rising from a single point, the central one upright and the outer two curving outward and down, all bound near the base by a horizontal band.
Both are stylised plants that became national identifiers, one for France and one for Ireland.