“Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities in the world.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Flowers, in all their forms and colors, evoke an immediate warm connection and appreciation of beauty. They have been the subject of art, literature, poetry, and music, and have figured prominently in world religions and cultures. Why is that? Why are flowers such purveyors of pure emotion in the human heart?

One reason is that flowers are available worldwide for everyone to see and experience, since they grow on all continents — including Antarctica! The old saying that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is never truer than it is with flowers.

“All people have an innate need to find beauty. Each person’s perception of the shape and form of flowers — their texture and density, color and variegation, uniqueness, and fragrance — play a part in what they see as beautiful," says Renato Sogueco, vice president of digital strategy and education at BloomNet.

The shape and form of a flower appeal to our innate sense of harmony and balance that we find aesthetically pleasing. Nature provides us with beauty through a universal proportion called the golden ratio (1:618), denoted by the Greek letter phi and the closely related Fibonacci sequence. We see examples in the whorls of flower petals, the coil of pine cone scales and fern fiddleheads, the proportion of animal and insect bodies, and the spiral of hurricanes and galaxies.

We perceive the other qualities of a flower — the texture and density, and its color, uniqueness, and fragrance — through the lens of personal and cultural preference. You may find an iris more appealing than I do.

So, while science does enter into the equation, any list that attempts to rank items according to the idea of beauty is going to be highly subjective — but that didn't stop us from compiling one.

Here are 15 of the most beautiful flowers in the world, each possessing its own individual qualities of beauty.

1. Rose (Rosa)