Red geraniums have become an easy-to-spot symbol of Brown’s annual Commencement and Reunion Weekend. The bold blooms appear in pots all over campus, including on many ceremony stages and nestled next to photo-op-ready landmarks. “I’m always on the lookout for them as I walk around campus,” said Brown’s research greenhouse manager, Nicholas Vasques, sounding almost like one of the proud family members about to arrive on College Hill. In mid-March, Vasques received 700 plant cuttings, each then the size of a pinky finger, and they were carefully placed in Brown’s Plant Environmental Center. Over the next nine and a half weeks, Vasques and his team hand-watered and tended to them and made sure the trademarked Calliope geraniums, a hybrid species he said was “known for their incredible vigor and persistent flower,” grew to their potential. “It’s such a nice tradition to be able to grow them here,” Vasques said. The custom of home-grown, custom Commencement geraniums was started in 1993...