Differences in others should be cherished

What makes flowers bloom? Why do they bloom? Why are there so many different shapes and colors?

 I don’t pretend to know all the answers. They bloom because that is what they are programmed to do. Different pollinators prefer different shapes or colors. Bats like light-colored flowers that open at night. Hummingbirds like tubular shapes, with a preference for red. Flowers and their pollinators form a partnership to ensure they both benefit.

In one of my botany classes I was taught that bloom time is dependent upon a specific period of darkness, specifically a lack of far red light for a certain number of hours each day. This explains the instructions for getting poinsettias to re-bloom by putting them in a closet for so many hours per day. How they determined that darkness was the key and not daylight is beyond me. It seems to me that light and dark are two sides of the same coin.

 It is not simply a lack of light that plants depend on. Some need light to even germinate. Some need a cold period in order to bloom. Some need to be touched by fire. The requirements are endless.

Then there is the matter of water. Too much, and the plant will drown, too little and it will shrivel. Some plants need to be soaked then left to dry out. Others get all the moisture they need from the air.

 The soil also makes a difference. A violet will be hard pressed to grow in sand. A cactus doesn’t appreciate the extra nutrients and water holding ability of potting soil designed for the violets.

 All of the above contributes to persuading a plant to bloom. But what determines what color it will be? Sometimes the color is dependent on the pH of the soil but more often than not, it is something that is innate to the plant. No amount of adjusting light, temperature, water, nutrients or anything else will change a daffodil from sunny yellow to fiery red. Putting food coloring in the water doesn’t count.

I hear you asking how we have so many different roses if we can’t change things. Maybe we can’t change a yellow flower to a red one but there is a natural variation in blooms. We can cull the flowers that are different and breed them. We can take a yellow flower that is a little more orange than usual and mate it with another one that has a pink tinge and get a slightly different color. Generations of this will produce different colors or other characteristics.

 I have yet to read where we have managed to create a color or form that did not originally appear on its own in some way or other.

None of this answers the question of why there is such variety. Wouldn’t it be simpler to say this is a flower that can reproduce without the aid of bees, birds, bats or wind? Wouldn’t it be easier if there weren’t so many choices?

Perhaps it would, but nature likes variety. No two living things on this planet are identical. Even identical twins have minute differences. Variety is essential to life. If one plant can’t survive, another will.

 So, too, it is with people. Give us ideal conditions and we will flourish and bloom. Deprive us of what we need to live and we will wither and die. But . . . if we work together we can all benefit. Just like flowers adapt themselves to their pollinators, we have the ability to adapt to our environment so that we all benefit. It is our differences that make us strong.

 Nature not only loves variety,  it requires it. Just as we cherish the variety of flowers and other plants, perhaps if we cherished the variety we see in others the world might be a happier place.