Black and grey botanical tattoo of a peony, poppy and orchid-like flower with rosemary sprigs on the outer thigh, drawn in fine line and dotwork shading.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Floral bouquet on the thigh

Botanical · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large floral bouquet covers the outer thigh, with a dense peony at the centre-left, a bloom with a seed pod at the top, a poppy-like flower on the right and rosemary sprigs at the upper left. The peony and leaves are shaded with stippled dots and fine hatching, while the flowers on the right are outlined in fine line with little or no shading. The ink is entirely black and grey against a plain light background.

Botanical Fine line Dotwork Upper arm Peony Poppy Flower Bouquet Leaves Seed pod

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Margaret, the reunion letter came to my mother's address because I never bothered changing it, and I suppose that's the sort of thing you'll find funny. I have not been to a school reunion since 1987 and I am not going now. But I did open the envelope with the list of names, went straight to the back of the page where your name was, and sat on the bottom stair for a while.

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I've kept your peony going. You gave me the root in the playground the summer we were fourteen, wrapped in a paper bag from the corner shop, and I was so cross because you said it would take three years to flower. It took four. The bloom is the size of a fist now and so heavy it lies on the path after rain. I deadhead it every morning and think of the Latin name the biology master made us copy out, which I've forgotten, and of the way you could draw a leaf in biro so it looked wet.

I'm sending you seed from the poppy by the back fence, the one that came up the year Dad left. Dry the pod on the windowsill for a fortnight, then shake it over a tin. Take the rosemary cuttings too. They root in a jam jar of water if you don't fuss over them. Whatever you decide about Saturday, I'd like something of ours growing somewhere that isn't a school hall.