Award-winning author Amy Stewart takes readers on an around-the-world,
behind-the-scenes look at the flower industry and how it has sought--for
better or worse--to achieve perfection. She tracks down the hybridizers,
geneticists, farmers, and florists working to invent, manufacture, and
sell flowers that are bigger, brighter, and sturdier than anything
nature can provide. There's a scientist intent on developing the first
genetically modified blue rose; an eccentric horitcultural legend who
created the most popular lily; a breeder of gerberas of every color
imaginable; and an Ecuadorean farmer growing exquisite roses, the floral
equivalent of a Tiffany diamond. And, at every turn she discovers the
startling intersection of nature and technology, of sentiment and
commerce.