Forget for a minute that the flower industry sells beauty and fragrance. Underneath its elegance is a business as cutthroat as Game of Thrones with mulch.
Take the case of the Candy Bouquet, a pretty, magenta-and-yellow flower that resembles a petunia. It was developed by a German grower, Westhoff Vertriebsgesellschaft MBH, that says it was on the verge of selling the variety to Home Depot Inc. when a rival swooped in, copied the plant and spread lies about Westhoff in order to win the business of the world’s largest home-improvement chain.
