A Timeless History
Roses were grown in the imperial gardens of China before Confucius wrote about them, and Rome scattered the petals at its feasts. Around 1800 repeat-flowering China roses reached Europe and were crossed with the once-a-year European kinds — every modern garden rose descends from that meeting. At Malmaison, Josephine gathered some 250 kinds, every rose then known.
SourceEncyclopaedia Britannica — britannica.com, “rose” · Iowa State University Extension — yardandgarden.extension.iastate.edu
Science In Action
Five petals — the wild number, opened flat to offer pollen to bees, hoverflies and beetles • Five sepals — two bearded, two bald, one bearded on one side only: a riddle set by Albertus Magnus • The hip — the swollen fruit left after the petals drop, rich in vitamin C • Prickles — not thorns; they grow from the skin of the stem, not from the wood
SourceRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew — growwild.kew.org, “The wild roses of Britain” · Royal Horticultural Society — rhs.org.uk
Arts
Redouté drew the roses of Malmaison and published them as Les Roses — 169 plates, 1817 to 1824, begun in Josephine's lifetime and finished after her death. They have been copied and reprinted ever since. The Wars of the Roses, red for Lancaster and white for York, got that name only in 1829, from a novel by Walter Scott.
SourceThe Cleveland Museum of Art — clevelandart.org, Les Roses · Walter Scott, Anne of Geierstein, 1829
Applications Today
Damask roses are still picked by hand at dawn in Bulgaria's Rose Valley and around Isparta in Turkey, before the sun drives the scent off. It takes roughly 4,000 kilos of petals to distil one kilo of rose oil — which is why the oil is sold by the gram.
SourceEncyclopaedia Britannica — britannica.com, “attar of roses” · Rose Festival Kazanlak — rosefestivalkazanlak.com
The rose belongs to the same family as the apple, the pear, the cherry and the strawberry.
‘Empress Josephine’ or Frankfort Rose (Rosa turbinata), from “Les Roses” by Claude-Antoine Thory — Pierre-Joseph Redouté (colour stipple engraving) — 1817–24 — The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York — 2018.587.1
