Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-06-28
THE ORIGIN OF ROSES.

The royal rose has pedigree fo shame any other queen-it is so long. so full of enchanting turns and twists. and so delightfully."- cumbered with myth, fable and history. She is, in way, a paradox. since although by appearance and perfume the most tropical of blossoms, she is yet by na- tivity flower of north-temperate lat itude. Her habitat is bounded north and south, roughly speaking, by the twentieth and the seventieth parallels. She grows wild all over Europe. in Africa as low as Abyssinia, in Asia to and through India. and in North Amer ica to the edge of Mexico.
 Most wild roses are single, yet Plinv mentions double ones-among them the Hundred -leaf-and Herodotus says: Macedonia has gardens 0f Midas with roses of sixty petals breathing out a delightful perfume.n r Whoever has read Roman history must recall the roses of Paestum, which bloomed twice a year. NotwIthstand- ing this, Rome's fatorite rose was the Hundred-leaf. lit followed the eagles and the legions wherever they went. and grows, to-day, over three parts of the Roman world, a vital record Of that old,time occupation.
 Etymologically, ''rose" is from tic Celtic ''rhodd" or ''rhudd,' 'sred," also the root of 'sruddy." The Greek name, ''rhodon.' has the same meaning. So have most rose names in any language. Botanically, the flower gives its name to the great natural order, rosaceae. Artifcially it is classed under poly goniae-the many-angled. The wild forms have always fieshy, urn or pitcher-shaped calyxes. twenty or more stamens, five petals, and i've se- pals The sepals show bit of ma tures most cunning work. Two OF them are bearded at both edges. two without boards, and the fifth bearded at one edge and straight along the other. Thus they inclose the bud with bearded overlap along every seam. good to repel moisture and t0 put ito rouut every intrusive creeping thing.
 Rose cultures beginning goes back beyond records. The flower is men toned in the earliest Coptic manu- scripts. India's traditions /take the rose to the times of the gods on earth. Egypt had roses, wild and rame. be- fore the Roman occupation made it, in StH way, hOLuS EOulLu0IC1ht IOSe &Hf- den;yet, curiously enough, there is no reference to the flower in painting. sculpture or hieroglyphics. Japan. in our time, parallels Egypt. Roses flourish there. but do not serve as a motif for artists. There is this fur ther lkeness-neither Egypt nor Jap an has rose song, or a love song proper-so it may we'll be that mad am, the rose, is avenged for the slight.
 The Jews returning from the Baby lonish captivity, took with them a re- compense of roses. Semiramis, with the world at her feet. found her chief joy in a bower of roses. Mahomet turned back from Damascus, after viewing 1t encircled with rose gardens .'It is too delightful. A man can have but one paradise" said the prophet. Damascus lies in the heart of Syrias whose name some geographers derive from seri, meaning q wild rose, and wild roses are abundant there. The damask roses of our gardens go back to Damascus. They were brought from 1t at the time of the Crusades--- although exactly when, or by whom. nobody can certainly say.--Martha Mo Culloch Williams in Success.