Flowing ornament of interlaced, scrolling vines, tendrils and leaves that curl in rhythmic spirals, often drawn in mirrored symmetry. In rugs it appears in the fields and borders of city pieces such as Kashan and Tabriz, alongside floral sprays, palmettes and vases, and in Shah Abbasi designs it swirls with vines around the central medallion.
One of the three principal design families of Persian rugs, alongside geometric and Herati: patterns of flowers, leaves and vines drawn in flowing curves. It dominates city and workshop rugs such as Tabriz, Kashan, Kerman, Sarouk, Nain and Isfahan, where high knot density allows fine detail, and it typically draws on forms such as the Shah Abbasi design and rosettes. Floral rugs come in two layouts: with a central medallion, where flowers and branches are smaller, or allover, with larger flowers.
A stylized blossom motif regarded in Persian rug tradition as a sacred flower and linked with long life. The central medallion of a floral-medallion rug is read as a lotus, drawn either as one large flower or as several small ones. The lotus is also a main feature of the Shah Abbasi design, and in the Herati design the fish-like leaves are said to circle a lotus. Lotus blossoms are among the motifs credited to the Mongol period, when designs from Chinese art entered Persian rugs.
A classic Persian floral style named after the Safavid ruler Shah Abbas, which began as a royal court pattern about 400 years ago. Its main features are stylized, feather-like palmette leaves and lotus flowers, the lotus being an ancient symbol of long life, arranged in strict symmetry with scrolling ornament around a central medallion, often a rosette. Early examples favored deep reds and blues, while later rugs in this style often turn to muted neutral tones. The design appears in Kashan, Nain and Tabriz rugs.