Contact: Diane Relf, Extension Specialist, Environmental Horticulture
Posted April 1997
Ever since the Egyptians reportedly filled Cleopatra's room knee-deep with rose petals before Marc Antony's arrival, the significance of the rose has ranged from love to political allegiance.
The art of the early civilizations of Babylon and Persia often depicted the damask rose; Roman and Greek mythology associated the rose with Venus and Aphrodite, the goddesses of love and beauty. Early Christianity symbolized the Virgin Mary with a white rose.
In the 15th century, the English families of Tudor and York touted their lineage through display of either a red or white rose in the civil conflict, the War of the Roses.
Napoleon's wife, the Empress Josephine, was a famous rose collector. Early 19th century engravings of her rose varieties and her development of the gardens at Chateau Malmaison are largely responsible for the popularity of "modern" cultivation of roses. So prized were Mme. Josephine's roses that during the French Revolution, a London nurseryman was allowed behind French battle lines just to care for the flowers.
The Victorian fascination with horticulture gave the pastime of rose growing additional endorsement at the end of the 19th century. Although the danger of young Victorian ladies pricking their fingers on the bushes' thorns was great, many young women took the risk for the sake of the flower's great beauty, elegance, and fragrance.
In addition to the luxury of having fresh flowers around their country homes, these genteel ladies also used roses as a means of communication. When a gentleman presented a woman with a red rose, for example, the message was one of love. If the lady replied with a white rose, her response was she was too young for courtship. If she replied with a single rose leaf, she wasn't interested. If the rose was yellow, she felt the young man too fickle. Only if the young woman responded in kind with a red rose were her feelings toward the gentleman those of mutual admiration.
The history of the rose in America began at least 40 million years ago when a rose left its imprint on a slate deposit at Florissant, Colorado. Fossilized remains from 35 million years ago have also been found in Montana and Oregon. Of the 200 known rose species, 35 are indigenous to America.
It was a rose that kept Christopher Columbus and his weary crew from turning homeward before siting land. On October 11, 1492, while becalmed in the Sargasso Sea, one of the crewman picked a rose branch bright with red fruit out of the water. With renewed hope, this sign of land gave the seafarers the courage to continue to the New World.
Edward Winslow, a founder of the Plymouth Colony, noted many roses were planted by the Pilgrims in 1621. Captain John Smith wrote that the Indians of the James River Valley planting wild roses to beautify their camps, making roses one of the first commonly cultivated ornamentals on this continent.
When William Penn returned to America in 1699, he brought 18 rose bushes with him and discussed both their beauty and medicinal virtue in his BOOK OF PHYSICS. Starting in 1731, the Penn family rented parcels of land for the price of one red rose per year.
The rose has been used on U.S. currency and military decorations. A 1722 coin had a five-petalled rose in its center and cupids and wreaths of roses adorn a three-dollar bill dated 1856. The Order of the Rose military medal of honor features a five-petalled rose with an eagle. In 1986, Congress proclaimed the rose as our national foral emblem.
(Prepared by Virginia Klara Nathan, Extension Technician, from press release materials provided by the Biltmore Estates and the National Committee on Roses.)
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