Before I graduated from Moravian University in 2019, I wanted to do something that summed up my time while I was there and could be enjoyed by students for generations to come.

I chose to plant a peony.

There were two reasons: It is a certain someone’s favorite flower, and the peony has a mutualistic relationship with ants. The second motivation seems strange, but I will explain.

First, I met my better half, Lauren Steinert ’20, during my sophomore year. Lauren was a freshman. Ever since then we have been tied at the hip. Her favorite flower is the peony. As I was finishing up my senior year and Lauren was completing her junior year, I knew I wanted to leave something on campus that would have her think of me and feel less alone after I graduated. That following year, with the first peony planted, she would pass her flower every day on her way to class.

After Lauren graduated, I knew her career in music could require her to travel for long periods of time, and I continued to plant her favorite flower year after year. It is nice to know that, in a way, a part of her will always be in the same location on Moravian’s campus, regularly reminding me of her when she is away.

The peonies are growing in a space only footsteps away from where we first said, “I love you,” and where we tied the knot in September of 2023. This is Lauren’s garden of peonies, and it will become almost as beautiful as she is.

When I received permission to plant the flowers, I was told that a century earlier the Moravians had a peony garden in nearly the same spot, and they held gatherings and ceremonies there.

Now, about the ants. . . . The second reason I chose peonies was because of the SOAR (Student Opportunities for Academic Research) project I worked on with biology professor John Bevington. I had the privilege to travel deep into the Peruvian Rainforest to the Cocha Cashu Biological Research Facility to study if leafcutter ants (Atta spp.) attack myrmecophyte plants (aka ant plants) that support mutualistic ants.

Leafcutter ants do as their name says: They travel up the stems of plants or trunks of trees to cut pieces of leaf to take back to their nests, where they grow fungi on the leaves. The ant colony feeds on the fungi. Myrmecophyte plants are those that have a relationship with mutualistic ants—the plants provide food and/or shelter, while the mutualistic ants defend the plant against herbivores.

I was accompanied on this trip by Bevington, his son, and two other students who were researching the exchange of nutrients between myrmecophytes and their mutualistic ants.

My research required that I work during the night, when the leafcutters actively forage. To view the Amazon rainforest in the dark was a thrill in the fullest sense of the word. The forest comes to life at night. From snakes to jaguars, all predators hunt at night—I had to be alert and careful.

Peonies are myrmecophytes, and seeing them brings back great memories of Peru, the Amazon, and my experiences there. I am grateful to Moravian for allowing me to travel to a different continent to conduct research.

It is said a peony can live for 100 years. They symbolize prosperity, good luck, love, and honor—a wonderful legacy. They bloom during graduation, as if the flowers are a send-off to each new class of Hounds heading out into the world beyond Moravian. It has become a meaningful tradition to plant a new one each year.