Poles given to eating nuts and flowers (8)
I believe the answer is:
gentians
'flowers' is the definition.
(gentian is a kind of flower)
'poles given to eating nuts' is the wordplay.
'poles' becomes 'ns' (North and South poles**).
'given to' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'nuts' indicates anagramming the letters (nuts can mean crazy).
'eating' with letters rearranged gives 'gentia'.
'ns' after 'gentia' is 'GENTIANS'.
'and' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for gentians that I've seen before include "Intensely blue flowers" , "Plants - antigens (anag)" , "bloomers" , "Intense blue flowers" .)