Rose Rosa spp

rose hips

The Damask rose (Rosa damascena), Provence rose (Rosa Gallica) and Eglantine(Rosa elganteraia) are the three oldest roses in cultivation and are considered to be the most fragrant roses in the world. Rosa gallica var. officinalis, the apothecary's rose, was once the official cultivar in The British Pharmacopoeia.

Wild roses: Just as many members of the lily tribe show a preference for the rule of three in the arrangements of their floral parts, so the wild roses cling to the quinary method of some primitive ancestor, a favorite one also with the buttercup and many of its kin, the geraniums, mallows, and various others. Most of our fruit trees and bushes are near relatives of the rose. Five petals and five sepals, then, we always find on roses in a state of nature; and although the progressive gardener of today has nowhere shown his skill more than in the development of a multitude of petals from stamens in the magnificent roses of fashionable society, the most highly cultivated darling of the greenhouses quickly reverts to the original wild type, setting his work of years at naught, if once it regain its natural liberties through neglect.

To protect its foliage from being eaten by hungry cattle, the rose goes armed into the battle of life with curved, sharp prickles, not true thorns or modified branches, but merely surface appliances which peel off with the bark. To destroy crawling pilferers of pollen, several species coat their calices, at least, with fine hairs or sticky gum; and to insure wide distribution of offspring, the seeds are packed in the attractive, bright red calyx tube or hip, a favorite food of many birds, which drop them miles away. ^{Netje Blanchan Wild Flowers worth Knowing(1917)}

Regional Traditions :Middle East *

Related Species R.gallica,R.damascena