'[Flowers] play a significant role in our lives.

We give them to those important to us on birthdays,

to celebrate weddings or births,

to symbolize condolence at a time of death.

In ceremonies throughout our lives

flowers are an indispensable presence. (...)

I see not a single bud with a useless existence’.

- Makoto Azuma: Azuma & Shiinoki: Encyclopedia of Flowers.