Hi David,
I guess it's botany lesson time. I've been fudging, and it's time to be more precise. (WARNING: LONG-WINDED MESSAGE TO FOLLOW
)
In most groups of plants, the number of petals per flower is strongly controlled. The basic rule is that it's generally five petals for dicots (less often four petals). In monocots, petal number is generally three, sometimes six (when the petals and sepals are indistinguishable as in a lily). There are some dicots, a very few monocots, and some primitive plants (neither dicot nor monocot) where the petal number is something else. In one small group, it's nine. More often, it's labelled "many" which is botanist's code for: lots of petals (usually more than 10), and the number is not strongly controlled, so it varies by flower. This is true for the sacred lotus, and for cactus flowers.
Now for the exceptions: I'll deal with the artificial one first. Some roses have more than five petals. They are not primitive. What happens in roses is that, occasionally, one of the stamens gets the wrong hormonal message and turns into a petal instead. Plant breeders noticed this, and deliberately bred mutants, where many of the stamens instead become petals. This is actually what happens naturally with cactus flowers, but that's a side issue. We're not looking at a cactus flower on this sword.
The second, bigger exception is composite flowers. Some groups, most notably the aster family, have decided to make a bigger "flower" by gathering a lot of smaller, simpler flowers together into one composite flower. The outer flowers in the composite (the "petals" on a sunflower) 3 or 5 petals fused together into one large banner (these are called ray florets, technically), while the flowers that make up the disk of the sunflower (technically, the disk florets) have highly reduced petals. It gets much more complicated, but that's enough for now. Sunflowers are not the only group to produce composite flowers, but they are by far the biggest and most successful.
ONE FINAL NOTE: I believe people widely really realized that the number of petals was important around the time of Linnaeus, who published
Systema Naturae in 1735. Linnaeus' system was grouped plants based on the number of stamens and carpels inside the plant and got everyone counting flower parts. Prior to 1735, I suspect that the only people who noticed the numbers of petals and such were accurate observers. As botany spread following Linnaeus, people knew that the number of flower parts was really important, and the pictures became more accurate.
NOW, TO GET BACK TO THE SWORD. we have a three-parted smaller figure, and an eight-petaled bigger figure.
Start with the smaller one: if those structures are petals, it's pretty definitely a monocot. The iris (on which the fleur-de-lys is modeled) is a monocot, so we've got a possible answer.
Problem is, if that's an iris, we're missing all the other parts of the flower. So far, I've just been talking about petals. Flowers also usually have sepals (below and outside the petals), and stamens and carpels (above and inside the petals). That's why I said that, if it's a fleur-de-lys, the artist didn't know what he was drawing.
Alternatively, those figures could be fruits, which develop from the carpels. When fruits develop, typically the sepals, petals, and stamens fall away. The rules for petal number do not govern the rules for stamen number, and in any case, those fruits could be from some member of the buttercup family, such as a larkspur or a wolfsbane.
That's how I interpreted the smaller figure.
Now for the bigger figure: Eight petals. Again, either the artist was drawing something realistically, or he was not.
If he was drawing something realistic, it's highly unlikely that it was a simple flower, because no group consistently has eight petals. To get there, you have to start with something five petaled, and add three mutant stamens. Doesn't happen often.
Or, the artist could be drawing a composite flower. This is possible, as there are some that have eight ray florets per composite flower. I'd have to sit down with a European flora to look, as there are literally dozens of possibilities. Most of these are obscure weeds, but one might be culturally important.
If the artist was not portraying a realistic flower, then either he was drawing some sort of symbol, or he was drawing a generic flower. In this case, the best we can do is figure out the symbolism, if any.
Eight-fold flowers happen to be easy to draw (i.e. make a petal every 45 degrees around a circle), so I've seen a lot of them in artwork. For various reasons I won't get into here (aren't you glad?
), eight petals doesn't work as well as five in the wild, and eight-petaled flowers are very uncommon.
That's the gist of it. So, if anyone wants to figure out the ID of a flower on a sword hilt, this is how I do it.
Hope it helps,
F