May '23

The answer appears to be as clear as a beautiful spring day. Flowers attract pollinators, whose services they need to mate and to whom they smell so nice and taste so good. Humans, however, are not pollinators. So why are we so enamoured with flowers?

My favourite theory is based on the adage that love passes through the stomach. Before that happens, though, we must mention another issue related to restricted mobility. What good are the pollinators’ matchmaking services if the offspring cannot overstep its parent’s shadow? Flowering plants, therefore, need one more service: seed transportation.

Some opt for the wind, but in those cases where the seed is too heavy, a carrier is needed. That is why many seeds are enveloped in a juicy piece of fruit. The carrier then travels as the act of love takes place in his digestive system. That is why, for fruit consumers, blossoms are a symbol of an upcoming harvest. Plants thus killed two proverbial flies with one blow by hiring both pollinators and disseminators in one.

Mother Nature knew what she was doing when she routed love through the digestive system. And as for the expression of love towards your new sock model, I defer to your feet.