Why Do Flowers Have Perfumes?
Man uses these oils to provide himself with perfumes, but the plant or flower has another purpose than this. The perfume is not made for man’s use, but for the use of the plant itself. In the plant and flower world the smell of the plant which is in the flower is a part of the scheme whereby plants reproduce themselves.
Every plant in order to reproduce itself must produce a seed. The flowers are in most cases the advance agent of the coming seed. Each flower produces within itself a little powder called the pollen, but as plants are like people—also male and female—they are dependent upon each other for the production of a perfect seed. Some of the pollen from the male plant must be mixed with the pollen of the female plant before a perfect seed results.