This way out

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver wrapped up at the end of February, and close observers – at least those with an eye for plants – would have spotted the green bouquets handed to the medal winners at the podium.

The Vancouver Olympic Committee ordered 1,800 of the bouquets, which contain, according to Canadian Florist magazine: green hypericum berries, green spider mums and broad leaf greens. The foliage consists of leatherleaf fern, loops of monkey grass and aspidistra leaves.

Here’s a list of facts about the bouquets:

• The inspiration behind the Vancouver 2010 athlete floral bouquets is to showcase flowers and greenery grown in British Columbia and Canada.
• For the 2010 Winter Games, 1,800 bouquets in total will be made with 1,707 awarded to athletes (1,055 Olympic and 652 Paralympic).
• The bouquets are presented to the top three athletes by members of the international sport federations shortly after they compete. The bouquets are designed to showcase British Columbia and Canada and be taken home by the athletes as a cherished keepsake, or tossed to spectators who are cheering them on.
• The athlete bouquets are a required element for Victory Ceremonies by the IOC at all Winter Games. At Summer Games, medal-winning athletes receive a bouquet as well as an olive wreath. Under IOC technical and protocol rules, the bouquets must be 20 to 30 centimeters long and about 25 centimeters in diameter.
• Organizing Committees are encouraged to design and use plants that represent the region where the games are being held.
• Flowers and greenery with little fragrance and pollen count are generally preferred since they lessen the chance of allergic reactions. VANOC wanted to wrap the bouquets in dried cedar but learned some people can have severe reactions to the oil found in the bark, so the idea was nixed.
• Long stems of grey and white pussy willows, known for their furry catkins, that grow wild across the country were also considered but dropped because of safety issues – when a bouquet is tossed into the crowd it could cause injury if it contains pointy materials.
   

GREENER AND SMARTER

A new study shows that being outside and around the natural world improves our ability to think. The basic premise is that nature – filled with things like trees, flowers and birds – captures our involuntary attention; you don’t have to stop and think about everything you see. This allows our attention to refresh itself in a way and gives your prefrontal cortex a break.

Walking through a crowded city – or, one could argue, working in your office – you’re required to constantly think about everything: avoiding obstacles (traffic), ignoring the irrelevant (the radio) and trying not to get lost (where’d I put that GPS?). 

Here’s the abstract of a new paper in Psychological Science, by Marc Berman, John Jonides and Stephan Kaplan:
“Attention Restoration Theory (ART) provides an analysis of the kinds of environments that lead to improvements in directed-attention abilities. Nature, which is filled with intriguing stimuli, modestly grabs attention in a bottom-up fashion, allowing top-down directed-attention abilities a chance to replenish.

“Unlike natural environments, urban environments are filled with stimulation that captures attention dramatically and additionally requires directed attention (e.g., to avoid being hit by a car), making them less restorative.

“We present two experiments that show that walking in nature or viewing pictures of nature can improve directed-attention abilities as measured with a backwards digit-span task and the Attention Network Task, thus validating Attention Restoration Theory.”

The study – “The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature” – will be published in a forthcoming edition of Psychological Science.