Fleeting and fragile blossoms
While many of nature’s most fragrant flowers are widely available and generally sturdy, some of the sweetest blooms are here for a minute and almost untouchably tender. Still, for all their fragility, they’re worth the velvet glove treatment for their poetic beauty.
Lily of the Valley: Lovely miniature bells on luminous green stalks, these are truly one of spring’s cutest shoots. Their characteristic bright scent and pure white shade make them a natural for wedding bouquets. Send a vintage cachepot full of the growing blooms to make Mother’s Day an-old fashioned delight, and nothing makes a more dapper, romantic boutonniere. But heads up – even the smallest bouquet is commands a larger budget!
Chocolate Cosmos: These dusky blossoms, the color of fine, bittersweet chocolate, add a 
bit of mystery to any bouquet. Their dark, velvety shade hits a striking noir-ish note, softened by their simple, daisy-like form. Though they don’t broadcast their cocoa-y perfume, nuzzle a bloom and you’ll get a clear whiff of the stuff that truffles are made of.
Sweet Peas: Like a little flutter of silk, the lovely, ruffled sweet pea tells us summer is near. These girly flowers are sweetness personified, from their silk hanky delicacy to their bee-dizzying perfume. Imagine a bundle of pink and purple blooms in a milk glass vase set on a farm house table, and you’ll get a good idea of their girl-next-door appeal.
Gardenia: Billie Holliday wore them in her hair. Screen sirens of the 30’s pinned them to 
their furs. Prom queens wore wristfuls of them as they danced the night away. Curved like sculpted ivory into a bas-relief blossom, gardenias are fragile, evocative flowers.
Set afloat in a shallow bowl they’ll tint the air with a honeyed, pervasive perfume. (Try drifting a few in a warm tub as you soak, and feel like Cleopatra). And though they may be tender and bruise at the slightest touch, they’re worth the star treatment for their creamy beauty and sultry scent.
