Over the years, I’ve done several songs that focus on my love—and, it would seem, the love of some film-makers and lyricists, too—for nature. I have done lists of nature songs; tree songs; and bird songs. Over the years, too, I’ve several times been told I should do a list on flower songs. I’ve always ducked that one, because Harvey, years ago, did a superb post on flower songs, and how I could I possibly hope to even match, let alone excel, a botanist writing about flower songs?!

But over the past couple of years, my interest in flowers has grown exponentially, and while I may not know a hundredth of what Harvey knows, at least I can depend upon my enthusiasm to steer me through. So here goes.

Flowers are, to put it bluntly, the sexual part of a plant. Contained in them are the female and male reproductive organs, plus (often) nectar, to entice pollinators such as bees, butterflies, bats, other insects, small birds, and so on.

Flowers are beautiful, flowers are useful (there would be no fruit without flowers), and human beings have admired and used flowers in a myriad ways since time immemorial. We’ve decorated with them, we’ve used their designs to fashion everything from jewellery to embroidery. We’ve painted and carved them, we’ve celebrated them in literature and in song.