Bloomsense: The Hidden Biology, Stories and Meaning of Flowers (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798171530884)

We treat flowers as decoration. They are nothing of the kind.

A flower is a living instrument - engineered over a hundred million years to summon, signal, deceive and reward, all without moving from the spot. And around that quiet biology we have wound something just as intricate: the meanings we give flowers, the messages we send with them, the myths and folklore we have grown around every petal and thorn.

Bloomsense is a journey into both: the hidden science of how flowers actually work, and the secret language we have always spoken through them.

From the covert chemistry a bloom uses to talk to a passing bee, to the Victorian language of flowers that let lovers speak in bouquets; from the mythology and folklore rooted in the garden, to the sheer ingenuity of a flower's design - this is the story of the most familiar, and most quietly misunderstood, life around us.

Written for anyone who has ever paused to look a moment longer, Bloomsense turns a walk past the border into an act of wonder. Lyrical, surprising and beautifully illustrated, it is a book to keep close and return to - and to give to someone who still stops to look.