The Prettiest Flowers in the World — Most Beautiful Flowers

Including the rarest one on earth.

As is often the case with beautiful things, we've given flowers meaning—so much so that even looking at one can make you feel more alive. A plain red rose has become a romantic expression of love and sunny daffodils represent the rebirth of the planet every spring. Of course, because they're plants, we also use them in more practical ways: Silky flower petals have been crushed and distilled into essential oils and perfumes for centuries, and we've figured out how to eat some of them and make tea with select leaves, stalks, and blooms. But to put it simply, the joy of admiring a gorgeous, colorful flower is unmatched. (Though we should note that some are best admired from afar because of toxicity.)

Not to mention, no two flowers are exactly the same. Some rise out of the water to bloom while others sprout vines that go where they want…permanently decorating the side of your house. Even low bushes can produce incredible blossoms, like giant peonies, and if you've ever sat under a cherry blossom tree with a cool breeze blowing tiny petals around you, you know how magnificent flowering trees can be.

A person who loves flowers is called an "anthophile," and if this describes you, you'll probably recognize most—if not all—of the flowers below. Rare or common, bright or soft, simple or complex, these beautiful flowers from around the world are certainly sights to behold.

File this one under: Flowers that Look Like Other Things. Shaped like a bird with fringed wings and a long curved neck, this breathtaking beauty looks like a tiny white egret flitting around a field. Magical.

Few flowers are also religious symbols, but the sacred lotus qualifies. It sits just above the water like a peaceful pink boat, while its stalk and roots reach deep into the mud in the dark waters below. If that's not a meaning-of-life story about the balance between struggle and beauty, we don't know what is.

Blossoms in every color imaginable make dahlia flowers a gardener's favorite. On this pom-pom-shaped variety, look at how each petal is shaped and placed so uniformly in a near-perfect sphere. It's so satisfyingly organized, and—if you can say this about a flower—tidy. They're also mini (only two inches across), which automatically makes them adorable.

If you want your flowers to come with a mythological pedigree, the calla lily is said to come from the breast milk of none other than the Greek goddess Hera, wife of Zeus. Back on earth, we celebrate them for their simple beauty and the way a single petal spirals elegantly around its spadix.

Costing 15 years and $3 million, the Sweet Juliet was created by David Austin to feature maxed-out petals and smell like a sweet tea. When he debuted the rose, people fell wildly in love. He sold it for $5 million, making this apricot sweetie the most expensive flower in the world.

Tiny lavender flowers smell amazing, and when you see millions of them in a field—say, in Provence, France—the effect is absolutely sublime. Fortunately, lavender bushes are just as easy to grow in a sunny spot in your yard, and you can harvest the flowers to make things like essential oils and body scrubs.

Whoever named this flower got it 100 percent right. It's not often you look at a flower and think "cozy," but the teddy bear sunflower is begging for a cuddle. Perhaps Vincent Van Gogh thought so too, because this varietal features prominently in his masterpiece.

The tropical white batflower is a sight to behold, but you'll have to stay up late to see it. Once the stalk rises about three feet above its huge leaves, it blooms at night, throwing out those wild tendrils and opening its white and dark purple petals. It looks a little like a bat, but the flower gets its name because bats are its pollinators.

When someone gives you the gift of a lei in Hawaii, it's most likely strung with fragrant frangipani flowers. They come in many colors, but this marshmallow white with a spritz of bright yellow is floral minimalism at its finest. Funny story: Frangipani is the name of a fake botanist dreamed up by 19th-century London perfume titans to sell their latest product.

No list of beautiful flowers is complete without a mention of the rarest flower on earth. This small, red camellia may look simple, but only two original live plants of its kind exist—one in New Zealand and one in the UK.

We didn't spot any at King Charles III's coronation, but we're pretty sure one of his many homes features this tall delphinium. After all, it's his favorite flower. If you're going to grow it in your own garden, be careful: Every part of the plant is toxic to humans and animals.

Fuchsia can grow as shrubs or small trees or on vines, producing pink and purple flowers so bright they almost look cartoonish. What's really cool is that the flower wasn't named after the color; the color was actually named after the flower.

Most of us know eucalyptus for the fragrant blue-silver leaves that we use for decoration, but the eucalyptus gum tree offers a completely different surprise. It produces Ping-Pong-ball-size seed pods, which are themselves often used in flower arrangements. We recommend patience because when they bloom, you'll get one of these dusty rose, sea-anemone-looking flowers per stem, and they cover the whole tree. It's magnificent.

A patch of flowers that looks like a curious flock of birds is exactly the level of whimsy we love to see in a garden. This tropical beauty is so colorful, it's easy to see why people keep planting it. Although it's not a rare flower, it's actually quite unique because only five varieties of it exist in the world.

This watercolor-like crocus is gorgeous, but that's not the main reason people are obsessed with it. It's the three auburn stigma that grow from the center and are harvested to make saffron spice that make it so covetable. The stigma are so fragile that they can only be harvested by hand, which is why saffron is one of the most expensive spices per ounce.

If someone tells you to close your eyes and picture a rose, a deep red version like this one (with that strong perfume we all hope for when we stick our nose in a flower) is probably what comes to mind. And yes, it's named after President Abraham Lincoln.

You might think green leaves with green flowers sound redundant until you see this frilly chartreuse beauty. It grows well in pots, returns every year, and is a wonderful way to bring some lime green in your life. It is a toxic plant, though—don't touch.

People love traditional tulips for their tall stalks, clean lines, and bright monochrome flowers, but it would be careless if we didn't call out the untraditional parrot tulip with its frilly edges and bold marbling. While a trip to Holland's tulip fields remains a dream-come-true scenario, we'll have to make do with the bulbs growing in our own yard.

An iris is a wild and ancient flower, complete with mythological backstories and rich symbolism, and it's only in the past 200 years that Americans have been growing it in their gardens. With three-foot stems and flower petals that fold down to reveal different colored petals inside, it's no wonder it's irresistible to gardeners.

A passionflower tends to appear as if it's inside out. All the parts are on display, pointing every which way, and they're all different colors. Even the vine it grows on is beautiful—full of cute, curling tendrils that hold on tight as it grows as tall as 30 feet. It's such a joy to have around.

Jess is a Commerce Editor, covering best-selling products for Hearst Magazines. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two kids.

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