This is from my notes:

Florus, the Green Man, is the male aspect of the plant kingdom. He came into being with the first
sexual differentiation of plants into male and female around 300 million years ago, in the form of the earliest
seed-bearing plants. Florus is the pollinator, and seeds and grains are associated with him.

In his role as garden God, he is a generous spirit of vegetative fertility who teaches nurturing and sharing, providing bread, juice, and wine from his body and
blood for our tables and sacraments. He is also the forest god, providing safety and refuge for all the wild creatures. In all his attributes, he remains consistently benevolent, though he is considered a guardian of the forest. The essential characteristic of the Green Man is his annual vegetation cycle of death and resurrection,
and so his rites have been at the heart of many of the ancient initiatory mysteries.

Initiates accompanied the Green God at harvest as he died and journeyed through the Underworld, eventually to be reborn in the Spring. Thus he became
the Initiator, as well as the spirit guide, accompanying the soul on its journey through the Underworld to eventual rebirth.

The Green Man has been most particularly identified with those plants, such as grains and grapes, whose fermented juices provide intoxicating alcoholic
beverages. Thus his spirit directly influences mortals by affecting their very consciousness. I refer to him by his Latin name, Florus, although he is much better
known throughout the Western world as Jack, a name that comes from the ancient Greek Iacchos, whom the Romans called Bacchus, the god of wine and ecstasy.

Jack is an English nickname for John, as in John Barleycorn, whose famous song tells of the growing of barley and the brewing of whiskey. In ancient Egypt
he was Osiris; in the Middle East he was called Tammuz; and in Africa he is still called Ochosi.

Kokopeli is his Native American name.

In Spring, when he is just raising his green head out of the forest floor, we call him Jack-in-the- Green, or Jack O’Green. He may be found in early
Summer surveying his congregation as the flower Jack-in-the-Pulpit. The fruit-flavored brandies fermented in late Summer are called Applejack, Bootjack,
or Smokejack. At Samhain, or Summer’s end, we carve his empty pumpkin skull into a spooky Jack O’Lantern, to stand guard on All-Hallows Eve and
scare away unfriendly spirits. And through the bitter cold of Winter, his ghostly spirit reminds us of his continuing presence as Jack Frost decorates our windows
with beautiful crystal designs. We see his familiar leafy “foliate face” engraved on ornate buildings
and in gardens.

The Green Man (Florus)
Oh, he will call the leaves in the Fall,
To fly their colors brightly!
When warmth is lost he paints with frost,
His silver touches lightly!
He greets the day in the dance of the May,
With ribbons wound about him!
We eat his corn and drink from the horn—
We would not be without him!

—Artemisia, “The Lord’s Bransle”