Floræ - Linnaeus' Flower Clock Beautifies Your Watch Face

Floræ – Linnaeus’ Flower Clock is a sweet little app. It does only one thing: display a new flower every hour for 24 hours. Each flower graphic represents a real flower which naturally blooms around that time. Floræ is literally a flower clock. You can use it as a complication; if you tap on the flower you can see it larger.

Floræ is awkwardly named, since “æ” isn’t a letter in our alphabet anymore. I had to look it up on Wikipedia to find out that it is a letter in a number of languages including Latin, where it is often used in plant names. The full name of the app refers to 18th century botanist Carl Linnaeus, who proposed a flower clock. This flower clock would be composed of flowers that bloomed at different hours, so you could tell the time by which flowers were in bloom. He never did get around to planting this “Horologium Florae,” but this digital version was created with that charming idea in mind. You don’t need to open it on the iPhone in order to use it on the Apple Watch. But if you do, it’s just a larger version of the flower of the hour. As a nice little bonus, the app also includes iMessage stickers. As you might imagine, the sticker set includes all 24 flowers.

While I enjoy seeing a new flower on my Apple Watch face each hour, I wouldn’t mind seeing more information about each flower in future iterations. When you tap the flower complication, it would be interesting to see a short paragraph that includes the name and a brief description of the flower.

I know that complication spots are precious, but if you have one to spare for a pretty little flower, Floræ is worth the spot on your Apple Watch. It’s free on the App Store.