Echinacea Harvest Moon, photo by Harold Davis. View this photograph larger.

I have been growing echinacea—also called coneflowers—in my garden because they are so spectacular to photograph. This one is the first of my Harvest Moons—a designer flower bred by Richard Saul specifically for its looks. Creating varieties of flowers based on their appearance brings up a number of issues, including the one raised by Michael Pollan in his Botany of Desire: we think we are forming the flowers, but are they really controlling our behavior to their own benefit? This is comparable to wondering whether the beautiful gold digger or the rich old dude gets the better deal. (You can read more about Richard Saul and his beautiful new echinacea varieties here).

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