Are Hothouse Flowers Good for You?

They Trigger Memories

• Imagine a wedding or funeral without flowers or Easter minus lily plants. Important celebrations call for flowers to decorate, embellish and accessorize. From bridal bouquets to Christmas holly and poinsettias, your memories are wound around flowers so profoundly, a single stem is enough to stimulate endorphins that flood your mind with sensory recollections of past occasions. Consider Barry's thoughts on the lasting effects of prom corsages: "If you pinned a bunch of grapes to your date's gown, your rental tuxedo would be a mess after the first slow dance."

They Alter Perceptions

• When Wageningen University's Center for Innovative Consumer Studies researchers investigated how flowers affect moods and perceptions, results proved enlightening. Participants, brought together at restaurants with and without flowers, were asked their opinions of others in the study. "At an unconscious level, flowers have a positive influence on the way restaurant-goers perceive each other as well as how enjoyable they remember the restaurant experience to be," concluded the research team. Amazingly, participants described as arrogant, tense, egocentric and by other unflattering terms were perceived as just the opposite once hothouse flowers entered the picture!

They Promote Happiness

• Behavioral researcher Jeannette Haviland-Jones of Rutgers University's Human Emotions Lab rounded up test subjects to participate in a study about how flowers affected people's moods in 2005. Each participant received three gifts: a decorative candle, a fruit basket and a bouquet of hothouse flowers. Their facial expressions were caught on camera as each gift was presented. The floral bouquets not only triggered the broadest, truest smiles in 100 percent of the participants, but after three days, the "happy" effects of the flowers remained. The fruit and candle? Not so much. "I was shocked," Haviland-Jones remarked at the end of the study, commenting on every person's smile. "I thought, No, this doesn't happen. In the emotions lab, you never get a 100 percent response ..."

They Make You Look Good

• Haviland-Jones's Rutgers study measured facial responses to hot house flowers, but her husband, Terry McGuire, wanted to delve deeper. The evolutionary biologist concluded that while flowers aren't necessary for our survival as a species, they sure pay off big time in sensory pleasure. He likened flowers to pets in that they actually reduce stress. Sweet fragrances and color may be the biggest drivers, he concluded, and people who give flowers are seen as achieving, strong, capable and intelligent. In short, hothouse flowers make you look good. Even Dave Barry couldn't find a way to poke fun at these perceptions!