Against a dark sky all flowers look like fireworks. There is something strange about them, at once vivid and secret, like flowers traced in fire in the phantasmal garden of a witch. – G.K. Chesterton, Alarms and Discursions, “The Glory of Grey”

Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844