We buy more flowers a year than we do Big Macs, spending $6.2 billion annually. We use them to mark our most important events, to express sentiments that might otherwise go unsaid. And we demand perfection. So it' s no surprise that there is a $40 billion global industry devoted to making flowers flawless.

Amy Stewart takes us inside the flower trade-- from the hybridizers, who create new varieties in the laboratory, to the growers, who produce flowers by the millions (often in a factory-like setting), to the Dutch auctioneers, who set the bar (and the price), and ultimately to the neighborhood florists orchestrating the mind-boggling demands of Valentine' s and Mother' s Day. There' s the breeder intent on developing the first blue rose; an eccentric horticultural legend who created the world' s most popular lily; a grower of gerberas of every color imaginable; and the equivalent of a Tiffany diamond: the " Forever Young" rose.

Stewart explores the relevance of flowers in our lives and in our history, and in the process she reveals all that has been gained-- and lost-- by tinkering with nature.