# @brownu on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DYn9DsmlbNy
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/65816904-brownu-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/ba51f37d79.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-05-22T02:32:08.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Brown University (@brownu) — https://gondola.cc/brownu

## Caption

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 by Vasques’ predecessor, who still often stops by the greenhouse to check on the flowers in their oasis atop 85 Waterman St. On Wednesday before the big weekend, Vasques transferred 150 pots of near-perfect flowers to Brown’s Facilities and Campus Operations team.

Like this year’s crop of graduating students, the geraniums had grown and matured in a place of learning, and they, too, were ready to go forth. #BrownU #Brown2026 #BrownReunion 

📸 Image credit: Nick Dentamaro

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## Tags

brown2026, brownu, brownreunion

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