Traditionally, the plants associated with Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere – holly, ivy, mistletoe – are celebrated for their evergreen leaves in winter or their fruits.

But in the Southern Hemisphere, Christmas falls in peak flowering season, a time of rebirth and reproduction more akin to the northern Easter.

For plants, finding and attracting mates is a challenge. They can’t sense their mates in order to choose, nor can they move to contact a partner.

Seed plants use pollen to safely carry sperm to eggs. Some transfer their pollen on the wind, but about 90% of flowering plants enlist the involuntary help of animals to find their mates and to carry their pollen from anthers (the pollen-producing part of a flower’s stamen) to stigmas (the receptive tip of a flower’s female reproductive organ).

Outsourcing mate-finding and sperm transport in this way means the flowers need to attract, reward and sometimes control their animal visitors rather than their mates.

Human senses notice colour, shape, scent and taste just as other animals do, so what attracts a bird or a bee often attracts us as well.

I was drawn to flowers early, long before I understood any of this. I remember a mass of bluebells in an English wood when I was four, and the satiny petals of Californian poppies in our Whanganui garden when I was five.

Later, as a student and a young researcher in botany, I was fortunate to work with and learn from some of New Zealand’s – and the world’s – leading flower biologists.

In retirement, I’ve been........

© The Conversation