Putting aside the seasonal dangers of pollen induced sneezing, flowers can give us a lot of happiness. Flowers just have the ability to brighten a mood or a room with equal levels of success, no matter whether it's a few pretty things that you've picked up in the park, or an expensive and lavish bouquet bought at the local florist's.
As we are in the middle of summer, it's well worth taking advantage of the kind of flowers that this season produces and getting hold of things which might not be available later in the year; indeed, you could either get something low-key from a nearby vendor, or perhaps a slightly grander affair from an online retailer.
Moreover, the usefulness of flowers isn't just limited to their roles as tokens of gratitude or 'get well soon' messages, as they are in fact employed in a wide variety of different purposes. For instance, if you're looking for a boutonniere or a corsage, a flower could provide a certain natural beauty that a broach or a tie pin might lack.
For numerous religions, flowers have been important to devotional ceremonies for many centuries. They are highly regarded in for Christian baptismal and funeral services, but they are also a very common gift brought by Hindus to temples, as a mark of reverence and adoration directed at certain goddesses.
You may also be surprised to find flowers being put to use in the preparation of a number of dishes. Perhaps the most obviously 'flower'-like example of this is the nasturtium, whose orange petals and round leaves have a similar taste to the rocket plant, but many common items found in many dishes are almost like flowers in disguise.
Broccoli, for instance, is a good example of one of these incognito flowers, as is the cauliflower, perhaps unsurprisingly due to their similarities of appearance. Strangely enough, the fact that the artichoke is also a flower perhaps makes more sense, as the triangular edible folds could look a little like petals if you squinted a bit.
Parts of flowers are often treated and repackaged for culinary use, and in fact the most expensive spice on the market, saffron, is one such product. It is composed of the dried stigmas, the sexual organ of the flower which receives pollen from the backs of bees, and these are collected from the crocus, whose lilac-coloured petals can be spotted anywhere from the Alps through to the Far East.
Capers and cloves have very strong links to flowers as well, and while it is not strictly the flower of the plant, a caper is a pickled bud of the plant of the same name. One the other hand, the dry, brown, twig-like clove is just the flower after having undergone an extensive dehydration process.
Maricruz Tennill is a horticulturalist and writer based in Manchester. They recommend Interflora for flower delivery Manchester.
