be white through to dark red. It produces a rich, sweet-scented oil or absolute for which it is widely cultivated in Turkey and North Africa (Morocco and Tunis). For centuries a type of Cabbage Rose has been grown in the region of Grasse in France and known as the ‘Rose de Mai’ – a hybrid between R. centifolia and R. gallica. This variety can grow to a height of 2 m (7 ft) and has pink to rose-purple flowers. The Cabbage Rose has subsequently given rise to innumerable sub-species, including the ‘Moss Rose’.
Other ancient varieties which are still used for the production of essential oils, but on a smaller scale, include the ‘Dog Rose’ (Rosa canina), ‘Sweet Briar’ (R. rubiginosa), the ‘Musk Rose’ (R. moscatta), the ‘Tea Rose’ (R. indica), the ‘White Rose’ (Rosa x alba), and the ‘Japanese (or Chinese) Rose’ (R. rugosa).
Note: See Appendix A for a more detailed description of these rose species.
Red rose, proud rose, and rose of all my days
Come near me while I sing thy ancient ways…
W. B. Yeats ‘The Rose upon the Rood of Time’
For thousands of years the rose has been prized by all cultures alike – indeed, throughout the ages no flower has enjoyed such favour! Classical texts from both East and West contain numerous references to the rose, and a whole range of myths has sprung up and flourished regarding its origins and symbolism. The symbolism of the rose is perhaps one of the richest and most complex associated with any plant, with a universal appeal that transcends time and cultures. As a powerful image of the heart or soul of humanity, the rose has always represented ‘love’, ‘beauty’ and ‘divinity’ along with many other attributes.
‘By thy scent my soul is ravished…’ wrote the poet Sadi. He, like many other great Persian writers, saw the rose not only as an object of great physical beauty but also as a symbol of spiritual attainment and transcendent desire. In the Avesta, the sacred book of Persia which forms the basis of one of the world’s oldest religions, the rose is honoured as ‘a messenger of the garden of souls’. Rumi (the great thirteenth-century Sufi mystic and poet) called the rose a ‘wise loveliness’, and a manifestation of the experience of the eternal ‘Beloved’:
Like a rose, I smile with all my body, not only with my mouth,
For I am – without myself – alone with the King of the World
Rumi, Divan-e-Kabir
Among the Sufis, the experience of the sacred was intimately associated with the form and scent of the rose, and the Persian alchemist and mystic Avicenna dedicated a whole book to the virtues of his favoured plant. According to one Persian legend, the nightingale fell in love with the white rose and flew down to embrace it. But she pierced her breast upon its sharp thorns, and from the drops of blood falling on the earth there grew the first deep crimson rose:
… And above all, the repeated splendours of glowing dawns, the profusion of rose gardens, white roses and red roses, the shades of the rose bushes, the divine presence flashing in the brilliance of a red rose.1
Ancient Persia is thought to be the birthplace of the cultivated rose, and the first place where roses were planted in beautifully laid out gardens. When the Moslem Arabs conquered Persia in the sixth century, they were so enamoured with the cultivated roses which they found growing there that Islam adopted the rose as central to its own tradition. Indeed, according to Arabic legend, when the prophet Muhammad was taken to heaven a drop of his sweat fell to earth and this became the first rose! In another story, roses come not from the prophet but from the perspiration of a lady, Joun, whose skin is white at dawn but rosy at midday. Later, as the Moslem religion spread to large areas of the known world, the love of the rose went too.
As early as 900 BC, Homer described in the Iliad that the shield of Achilles was decorated with roses – as were the shields of the ancient Persian warriors. In addition, the custom which is still known today of strewing roses on the graves of the dead can be traced back to this period. In ancient Greece the rose was held sacred to Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. According to Greek legend, the first rose grew out of the white foam that covered Aphrodite at her birth. For the Greeks, the red rose is said to have issued from the blood of her beloved Adonis after he was attacked by a wild boar – the word ‘rosa’ derives from the Greek word ‘rodon’, meaning red:
… the crown jewel of the flowers, and the royal purple of wise men, the mirror of beauty. Full of love she is Aphrodite’s servant; with fragrant leaves shining brightly she sways above the foliage bathing in the smiles of Zephyr.
Achilles Tatios, 139 BC
As the cult of the rose spread over the whole of ancient Greece and beyond, so did the mythology surrounding it. One of the oldest Roman stories is of Flora, who upon finding the corpse of a beautiful nymph, a daughter of the Dryads, transformed her body into the first rose with the assistance of Venus and the Graces. Apollo then blessed the flower, Bacchus supplied the nectar, Vertumnus the perfume, while Pomona gave her fruit and Flora crowned her with beauty. According to another legend, the first rose was said to have originally been white in colour, the red varieties coming into being when a thorn pierced the foot of Venus – her blood staining the petals crimson.
Although the rose had been revered by many early civilizations, with the Romans worship of the rose took on unsurpassed proportions. Indeed, no other culture has been as obsessed with the rose in a literal sense, as that of ancient Rome … they even created a holiday, ‘Rosalia’, to consummate their passion for the flower!
Roses were strewn at public ceremonies and banquets; rosewater bubbled through the emperor’s fountains and the public baths surged with it; in the public amphitheaters, crowds sat under sun awnings steeped in rose perfume; rose petals were used as pillow stuffings; people wore garlands of roses in their hair; they ate rose pudding; their medicines, love potions, and aphrodisiacs all contained roses. No Bacchanalia, the Romans’ official orgy, was complete without an excess of roses… At one banquet, Nero … spent the equivalent of fifty thousand pounds just on roses – and one of his guests smothered to death under a shower of rose petals.2
In 220 AD, Athenaeus mentions that rose petals were strewn eight inches deep upon the ground in Cleopatra’s private chambers when she first met Mark Antony! In the early years of the Roman Empire, the rose was linked with Venus, the Goddess of love – but in latter years, as the Empire declined and decayed, it came to stand for vice and immoral behaviour. After the fall of the Empire, the Roman Catholic Church thus condemned the rose as a heathen flower. The Church was particularly contemptuous of the old pagan custom of offering wreaths of roses to the dead:
If they are blessed, they do not need them – and if they are lost, they won’t have any pleasure in them!3
But the rose was not an image that could be wiped clean from human consciousness. The custom of offering roses to the dead persisted,