Wild Flower Sevens

“Wild Flower Sevens” card game

Every card pictures a different Wild Flower...

Wild flowers have appeared as suit symbols on playing cards as far back as the fifteenth century. Flowers also appear on fortune-telling or oracle cards where the flowers suggest virtues or human qualities. In this children's card game published by Castell Brothers Ltd c.1960 each card shows in full colour a different specimen of Britain's beautiful wild flowers which can also be used to identify the flowers found outside.

Each card pictures a different wild flower and the pack is made up of 4 suits of 11 cards each. The suits are recognised by the shapes enclosing the numbers in the top left-hand corner of the cards and are Circle, Square, Diamond and Triangle. The cards of each suit are numbered 2 to 12, there being none numbered 1.

Above: Wild Flower Sevens card game by Pepys Games (Castell Bros Ltd) c.1960. The place where each flower is commonly found is printed at the bottom of every card.

By Simon Wintle

Member since February 01, 1996

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Curator and editor of the World of Playing Cards since 1996. He is a former committee member of the IPCS and was graphics editor of The Playing-Card journal for many years. He has lived at various times in Chile, England and Wales and is currently living in Extremadura, Spain. Simon's first limited edition pack of playing cards was a replica of a seventeenth century traditional English pack, which he produced from woodblocks and stencils.