Flora was the Roman goddess associated with flowers, spring, and renewal.
Her festival, the Floralia, celebrated blooming vegetation and was held from April 28 to May 3. The festival included flowers, public entertainments, drinking, and theatrical performances. Flora’s connection with spring also gave her a broader association with youth and fertility.
Flora had her own priest, the Floralis, one of Rome’s flamines minores. Her cult was formally established during the Roman Republic: a temple was dedicated to her in 238 BCE after consultation of the Sibylline Books, while the Floralia had reportedly been instituted two years earlier.
Flora is sometimes treated as simply the Roman version of the Greek Chloris, but that identification came through interpretatio graeca, the Roman practice of comparing foreign gods with familiar ones. Ceres governed grain and agriculture more broadly, while Pomona was linked specifically with fruit trees and orchards.