Holmes interacts with flowers twice in The Naval Treaty. One of which he admires, and the other he gives to Mrs. Hudson as a sign of gratitude.
I find it fascinating how he can pretend to be so unfeeling and purely logical, yet he allows himself to see the beauty in things as romantic and simple as music or flowers. Holmes handles the rose (in the left picture) so tenderly. In this scene, he is confronted for becoming distracted and even seems to have forgotten about the case entirely. Holmes finds comfort in nature (even if he pretends he hates it), as we see later in the episode:
Both interactions with flowers are in the presence of other people. It's as though Holmes can justify affection, but only if it is directed towards an object and not a person. Perhaps because he knows said object cannot reciprocate those feelings. When he gives Mrs. Hudson a flower, he's showing his affection for her through it instead of to her directly.
In a way, I feel as though Holmes expresses his love through acts of service as we see him give others gifts, like when he gives Watson his favourite type of cigars in A Scandal in Bohemia. I feel he prefers this method as there is less attention on him and his feelings, and more on the gift itself.
But reading the classic Sherlock Holmes stories, it is still hilarious how often the subjects get themselves into a ✨Situation ✨ because they felt compelled to take a tea break.
“Look at those big, isolated clumps of building rising up above the slates, like brick islands in a lead-colored sea.”
“The board-schools.”
“Light-houses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wise, better England of the future.
My hackles were going up seeing Holmes praise “board-schools,” which I assumed were boarding schools, but then learned that “board-schools” are the opposite:
elementary schools established in Great Britain during the late 19th century that were maintained out of local taxes and controlled by a locally elected school board (from dictionary.com)
Now this makes this scene just adorable. Holmes coming in with yet another non sequiter all “Wow I love publicly-funded education!! Children are the future!!”
It also goes so well as a bookend to his exchange with Watson in The Copper Beeches about the picturesque country manors. There, Watson admires the scenery, while Holmes gets the creeps thinking about what the isolation can foster. And then here, Watson is just ???? at Holmes gushing at how much he loves the view of ugly boring public schools.
Little moments from Granada's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes S1Ep3 "The Naval Treaty" (1984). Dir. Alan Grint. Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, David Burke as Dr. Watson, David Gwillim as Percy Phelps, Alison Skillbeck as Annie Harrison, Gareth Thomas as Joseph Harrison