Flower power

I was walking along a street near my home and my gaze was drawn toward the bright yellow flowers planted in the troughs at the side of the road. As I got close I was curious as to whether the delicate flowers had any scent and so bent down to find out, and yes there was a sweet aroma. I took a further deep inhalation to absorb more of this precious scent amidst the strongly polluted air around, full of engine gases and then a thought occurred to me. These little flowers must be pumping out this fragrance all the time, not just when I stopped by to sniff them. And then I was struck by the significance of this – twenty-four hours a day these small delicate plants are emitting a strong aroma but where can it come from? We humans of course emit our own particular aroma (smell) individual to each one of us, just as we do heat, and this is because we have a beating heart and a powerful system which converts food to energy. But what about the flower, it doesn’t have a beating heart and its roots sit in soil which has a completely different aroma. So how does a flower generate such a strong energy? Of course it is not done for us humans to enjoy, it is done to attract the insects which will pollinate it but nevertheless this is quite a feat.
This is just one of the wonders of life which we probably spend little of our time admiring. In fact how much of our wonderful world do we take time to really appreciate?