Flowers

Flowers appear numerous times in The Hunger Games trilogy, and in some cases they play a major symbolic role in the storyline.

Buttercup
Primrose Everdeen named her cat Buttercup, insisting that his muddy yellow coat resembled the flower.

Daisies
In Rue's Lullaby, a song that Katniss Everdeen sings to Rue as she dies, she mentions that 'the daisies guard you from every harm'. See Deep in the Meadow for more.

Dandelions


"That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that."

- Katniss Everdeen in Mockingjay

Dandelions are a symbol of hope to Katniss Everdeen. After Peeta gave her the bread that saved her from starvation, Katniss saw Peeta at school near a field of dandelions. Katniss and her sister also picked Dandelions to serve as food when their father died and they were very hungry (she had seen them when she was in school). She learned from her father's plant book that dandelions could be used for food. When Katniss threw the cookies Peeta's father gave to her after the reaping out the window of the train, they fell open next to a bunch of dandelions.

Posy
Gale Hawthorne's little sister Posy's is named for a flower. The word can also refer to a small bunch of flowers of any type.

Primrose


Primrose Everdeen is named after the evening primrose. After the end of the rebellion, the first thing that Peeta Mellark does upon returning to District 12 is to locate five bushes of primrose from the woods and begin to plant them outside of Katniss' house in the Victors' Village as a memorial to Prim. It was this action that snapped Katniss out of the lethargy she had been in for months and she began living again.

Roses
"No one will fully understand - how it's not just a flower, not even just President Snow's flower, but a promise of revenge."

- Katniss Everdeen, on roses. President Coriolanus Snow smells of roses and always wears a white rose in his. The flowers are genetically enhanced to make their scent very strong and are grown in a greenhouse in the presidential mansion. Aside from the white roses, red, pink, orange, and pale blue ones are grown in the greenhouse as well.

It is revealed that Snow uses the rose in an attempt to hide the ever-present smell of blood that comes from his mouth sores; during his rise to power - and in an effort to keep it - Snow poisoned any potential rivals and often deflected suspicion by consuming the poisoned drink himself. While he possessed antidotes, they didn't always work, so the mouth sores were a constant problem. In Mockingjay, Snow leaves a rose in Katniss's house. She finds the rose when she comes back to visit her home after the bombing of District 12.

Red and pink roses (white in the film) were dropped after the bombing of District 13, which Katniss believed to be from President Snow, and like the white rose she found in her house in the Victors' Village, there to upset her.

When in the Capitol, Squad 451 is attacked by mutts described to smell of roses, and Katniss describes this type of mutt as injecting a psychological twist to truly frighten the victim. Towards the end of Mockingjay, Katniss is in Snow's mansion when she finds herself in his rose garden. The putrid stench of roses sickens her to the point of gagging.

The roses reminded her of Peeta because the same type of white roses were in the room during one of Peeta and Katniss's interviews in the Capitol right after winning their first Hunger Games.

Rue


Rue is named after this flower, which Katniss mentions grows in the meadow, an area just outside her house on the outskirts of District 12. After Marvel killed Rue with his spear, Katniss covered her in flowers to show the Capitol that she "wasn't just a piece in their Games." She also sang her a lullaby as she died. After Katniss won the Hunger Games, this was regarded as a defiance against the Capitol, which helped sustain Katniss to return to the arena for the 75th Hunger Games.

Tiger lilies


Shortly before her Victory Tour, Snow makes an unexpected visit to Katniss' new house in the Victors' Village. Mrs. Everdeen offers him some cookies as a good host. These cookies were made by Peeta, which is revealed by the beautifully frosted tiger lilies on top.

Wild Flowers
After Rue died, Katniss covered her body with yellow and purple wild flowers, in an attempt to hold the Capitol responsible for her death. She covers Rue's body, hair and wound with the flowers to make her look like she's sleeping. Later in Catching Fire, Peeta paints a picture of how Rue looked when covered in flowers, an action which provoked the Capitol into giving him a perfect score, thus making him a target.

At the end of The Hunger Games, Peeta and Katniss are walking down the train track and Peeta collects a bunch of wild flowers to give to Katniss. Katniss did not tell him that these flowers were the tops of onions which reminded her of Gale.

Trivia

 * Many of the Capitol citizens have tattoos of flowers on parts of their bodies.