Most have blossoms in sets of five, and many bear edible fruits, including the rose the rose hip, the part that's left after the petals drop off, an excellent source of vitamin C. Roses were first cultivated in China about 5,000 years ago. In the middle ages, the rose was valued as a medicine. Extracts were used in remedies and ointments of all sorts, although some experts believe that their most therapeutic aspect was to disguise the taste of unpalatable concoctions. One of the most subjective of issues concerning roses is fragrance. Fragrance depends upon many factors including the variety of rose, time of day, weather, growing conditions, wether the flower is living or cut, and, of course, the person smelling the rose.
Roses are most fragrant in mid-morning on a warm day with no wind and moderate or high humidity.
Roses are bred with many attributes in mind, including color. Royalties on a popular new color may bring the breeder millions of dollars. At the end of the 19th century one characteristic still lacking was an attractive yellow color. In 1885, breeder Joseph Pernet-Ducher found the color he was looking for in a garden in Lyons, France. He spent the next 25 years crossing and backcrossing until he achieved the first pure yellow garden rose, Rayon d'Or.