Flower care

Introduction “…[I]t was the flower that first ushered the idea of beauty into the world the moment, long ago, when floral attraction emerged as a evolutionary strategy” (p.xviii)…[one of]…”a handful of plants that manage to manufacture chemicals with the precise molecular key needed to unlock the mechanism in our brain governing pleasure, memory, and maybe even transcendence.” (p.xviii) I would be the last person to make light of the power of the fragrant rose to raise one’s spirits, summon memories, even in some not merely metaphorical sense, to intoxicate”…(p. 177) (Pollan, 2002). The proposition that “floral attraction emerged as a evolutionary strategy” for “pleasure, memory and maybe even transcendence” (Pollan, 2002) is basically the hypothesis that there is an evolutionary niche for emotional rewards, a niche to which species far removed from mammals, even flowering plants, may adapt. Few scientists have taken this hypothesis seriously and few studies question the effect that flowering plants or other non-humans, (except dogs; Allen, 2003) have on human emotions. Do flowering plants, in fact, increase positive emotional reaction by influencing emotional displays such as smiling or, over a longer time period, do they change moods and also influence socio-emotional functions such as social greeting patterns or memories of social events? The following studies of social-emotional responses to flowers begin to examine this proposition and to question the human emotional environment outside that of human relationships. Although we know that depriving humans or other social species of species-specific social contact and emotional support is detrimental to health (Cacioppo et al., 2000; Spitz, 1946), very little research has been directed to the effects of depriving humans of other-species sources for emotional support. Humans are embedded in a larger sensory and social environment than that occupied by their own species. Depriving humans of non-species emotional support may be as detrimental to human survival and fitness as depriving humans of any other resource.