Simbelmynë was a beautiful flower of Rohan. It was a small white flower that blossomed steadily throughout the year. It grew on the tombs of Rohan's Kings in particular, and were said to grow thickest on the ninth mound where Helm Hammerhand was buried.

Two other types of flowers are mentioned in the Unfinished Tales that seem very much like simbelmynë:

In Gondolin, Tuor saw white flowers called uilos, or Evermind. The other is alfirin.

Tolkien envisioned simbelmyne to be "an imagined variety of anemone, growing in turf-like anemone pulsatilla, but smaller and whiter, like the wood anemone."

The word Simbelmynë meant "Evermind". It was called that because the flowers were meant to remind you of the dead.

Meanings:
In the Old English tongue, "symbel" or "symel" means "ever or always" and "mynë" means "mind or memory."

The term "uilos" could mean "ever-snow-white" or "ever-blossoming" in Sindarin. From the Quenya, "oi", which means "ever" and either "olosse", meaning "snow or snow-white" or "losse" meaning "blossom" (in most cases referencing white blossoms).

Additional information provided by Mark Hoff.


Encyclopedia entry originally written by Malifur14