The material that this work is based upon is predominantly from the Flora Danica illustrations drawn in the period 1761-1883. Among the panels in Flora Danica 64 were chosen, that reproduces the wild plants that are usually recognized as a weed in today's gardens. These were included in the book 'Garden Weeds' (1974), where the vast majority of cuttings for 'The Butterfly Effect' are sourced. They are supplemented with a few more exotic elements like illustration of a cactus from the book "Biological Research' (1974).

The title is taken from Edward Lorenz's chaos theory developed in 1961. "Predictability: Does the Flab of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?" Popularly known as 'The Butterfly Effect' it is the notion that a butterfly's wings from one side of the world can cause a hurricane on the other side because of the sensitive dependency of initial conditions in a given dynamical system.

The choice of the material as well as the title suggests that everything is connected and mutually dependent and as such affects all things in complex ways and with unpredictable results.