When Barthelemy Dagnan bought three plants of the Helichrysum Orientale (= immortelle) in 1815 at the market of Marseille (France) and planted them in his garden, he could not have guessed that in doing so he gave a new twist to the funeral and commemorative culture of the 19th century. The Helichrysum became the commemorative flower of 19th-century Europe and far beyond. As the natural flower disappeared from the economic scene, it remained in memory, well into the 20th century, in the form of marble and ceramic images. Today, the flower has disappeared completely from the range of grave accessories altogether. The history and use of Helichrysum Orientale has never been previously researched in Belgium. The flower became popular in France from the 1830s onwards. The mediatised burial of Louis-Marie d’Orleans, Belgium’s first queen in 1850 probably introduced the immortelle into the Belgian funerary culture. For half a century, the flower became an integral part of Belgian memorial culture.

Drawing on 19th-century articles from Belgian newspapers, sequels in newspapers, environmental reports and descriptions of the immortelle industry, this is the first time that the rise, flowering and fall of the industry of immortelles and the shifting symbolic meaning of the flower in Belgium is portrayed. The lecture unlocks this forgotten funerary history and gives the Helichrysum Orientale back its place in history. The paper will be published in the book Memento Mori III, the Sustainable Cemetery in October 2024.