It’s not quite as racy or cunningly investigative as its title suggests, but Stewart’s international shadowing of the megabillion-dollar cut-flower industry does offer astonishing facts that take some of the bloom off the rose. Such as, many resplendent South American roses are dipped head-first in fungicide before air-shipment. A floriculture manager smiles warmly at the author and says, “I would never recommend that you take a bath of rose petals. Never.”

Stewart is generous to a fault in giving her contradictory sources the benefit of the doubt. She starts out in Arcata, Calif., home to a floriculture giant that ships 100 million stems a year including the hyperpopular “Star Gazer” lily hybridized nearby in 1978 by an eccentric who got $1,000 for it. She takes in Ecuadoran flower farms, the cavernous warehouses of the Miami airport, and the absurd particulars of the “descending bid” Dutch auction that peddles 5 billion flowers annually.

When gay marriage was briefly legal in San Francisco, Stewart relates, florists there got hundreds of phone orders a day from Minnesota, for “bouquets that would somehow convey an anonymous message of love and hope from one stranger to another.” They were addressed simply, “To the happy couple.” Now, that’s flower power.

source :www.courier-journal.com