A flower's head or heart?
I’m currently writing a story and one of my characters is a butterfly. In one of the scenes, she manages to run away from a bunch of hungry lizards and hides into a flower; let’s say a Zinnia.
When describing the scene I wrote:
“……she dived into the Zinnia’s head and hastily rolled into the pollen….”
But then, I found that the expression “flower head” means: “A dense, compact cluster of small flowers that appear to be a single flower, as of a dandelion or clover.”
Thus, I changed the word to:
“…she dived into the Zinnia’s heart and hastily rolled into the pollen….”
Would it be correct?
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2 answers
A few alternatives:
She dived into the flower.
She dived into the zinnia's flower.
She dived into the petals.
She dived into the zinnia's center.
Or, simply:
She dived into the pollen.
Add the rolling in pollen parts if needed.
I realize you want to differentiate between zinnia the plant and the actual flower. You don't want your readers thinking she's going to be hiding under the leaves.
Both "head" and "heart" have other connotations; using either of those terms might pull the reader out of the story. My guess is that your story is for children (because of the butterfly character). If this is the case, then you really want your language to be clear and easy to follow. In any case, avoid terms that aren't perfectly clear.
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Putting scientific definition aside, "Flower head" works better since it's a personification. The human reader has no trouble associating the upper part of a body with the upper part of a flower.
On the contrary, "a flower's heart" is a little harder to imagine. Without further context, I would struggle to understand what you mean, exspecially since I'm not an expert botanist (before looking it up on google, I had no idea how a Zinnia's looked like). It could still work, providing more context:
“……she dived between the Zinnia's petals, in the secluded heart that kept the pollen safe…"
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