We expect them as gifts from our dates. We pinned them to our wrists at prom, and they will sit at the tables at our weddings. Sometimes, if we’re feeling nostalgic, we’ll pluck them from the ground and stick them in a vase. Usually, we don’t even think about them. We don’t stop to look at them. We certainly don’t stop to smell them. 

Flowers, to put it simply, are lovely. They look pretty, they smell nice, and outside of West Texas, where the wind isn’t so harsh, and it rains more than thrice a year, they grow naturally. The Woodlands, for example, a sprawling suburb nestled close to metropolitan Houston, has an annual Wildflower festival. The Battle of Flowers parade in San Antonio is the oldest single part of Fiesta, and commemorates the fallen of the battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto. Similar, larger parades and festivals take place the world over, from here to Colombia,  Spain and Thailand. Roses are just as native to China and Europe as they are North America.

Flowers are old, and people have been obsessed with them for just as long as we have obsessed over gold. Poets and writers have been penning their beauty since poets and writers have had a language to do so; when Paris had Helen, Narcissus had daffodils. We should not overlook the recent resurgence of flower crowns, a clear throwback to the Roman laurels of old. As changes in music, art and clothing have occurred since the days of Cleopatra, Shakespeare or Marie Antoinette, it is entirely possible that in their drawing rooms sat the same floral array that one might find, today, in any store.

Flowers have meanings. We all know that a rose stands for eternal love, or that a daisy stands for innocence. Florists and people, over the years, have ascribed an entire language to flowers. One might tell an entire story with a proper bouquet. Of course, for those of us overwhelmed by the task of senselessly googling every variant for its generalized meaning, that’s merely a bonus. A peony is a peony, is a peony.

Flowers make the best teas. Green tea would scant be anywhere if not for the addition of jasmine. Flowers made the original perfumes. Flowers can be pressed or dried and kept forever, and still look and smell wonderful. And, of course, for the doubtful biology major, flowers are key in pollination. Although the dinosaurs once enjoyed plants sans flowers, it is an unlikely thing to occur today.

We grow them on campus. They sit outside our apartments. They are sold at any large grocery store, and in abundance at home goods stores. We have florists in town, and more online. Flowers are a great way to make our room a little brighter, and ours days a little better.