The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1905-01-05
ORIGIN OF ROSES.
Royal Flower That Grows Happily In
Many Foreign Lands.

Royal F1ower That Grows Happily I'm
Many Foreign Lands.
The royal rose has a pedigree to
shame any other queen-it is so long,
SO full Of enchanting turns and twists
and so delightfully."- numbered with
myth, table and history. She is, in
a way, a paradox, since although by
appearance and perfume the most trop-
ical Of blossoms, she is yet by nativ-
ity a flower Of north-temperate lati-
tudeA Her habitat is bounded north
and south, roughly speaking, by the
twentieth and the seventeen parallels.
She grows wild all over Europe, in
Africa as low as Abyssinis, in Asia
to and through India, and in North
America to the edge of Mexico.
Most wild roses are single, yet Pliny
mentions double ones-amcng them the
hundred-leaf-and Herodotus says:
Macedonia has gardens of Midas,
with roses Of sixty petals breathing
out q delightful perfume" Whoever
has read Roman history must recall
the roses of Paestum, which bloomed
twice a year. notwithstanding this,
Rome's favorite S a the hundred
leaf. 1t followed the eagles and the
leg1ons wherever they went, and grows
to-day over three parts of the Roman
world, a vital record of that old-time
| occupation.
Etymologically, rose" IL from the
Celtic Rhodd or rhudd, red" also the
root of "ruddy." The Greek name,
rhodon, has the same meaning. So
have most rose names, in any Ian
guage. Botanically, the flower gives
name to the great natural order rose
aceae. Artiicially, 1t is classed under
polygoniae-the many angled. The
wild forms have always fieshy, urn
or pitcher shaped calyxes. twenty or
more stamens, five petals and five
sepals. The sepals show "a bit Of n a
lures 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
a bearded overlap along every seam,
good to repel moisture and to put to
rout every intrusive creeping thing.
Rose cultures beginning goes back
beyond records. The flower Is men,
| toned In the earliest Coptic manu-
scripts. midas tradition take the rose
to the times of the gods on earth.
Egypt had roses, wild and tame, be-
e. 49, D~-or oooroo<;or xooAo -
in a way, Rome's commercial rose gar
den; yet c~uriously enough, there is no
| reference to the flower in painting.
sculpture or hieroglyphics. Japan
in our time, parallels Egypt. Roses
| flourish there, but do o serve as a
motif for artists. There is this fur
Their likeness-neither Egypt nor Japan
has a rose song or a love song proper
$50 it may well be that madam. the
| rose, is avenged for the slight.
The Jews, returning from the Baby
lcnish captivity, took with them a rec
| ompense Of roses. Semiramis, with
the world at her feet, found her chief
| Joy in a bower of roses. Mohammed
| turned back from Damascus, after
viewing it encircled with rose gardens.
1T is too delightful. A man can have
but one paradise" said the prophet.
Damascus lies in the heart Of Syria,
whose name some g~eographers derive
from ser1. meaning a wild rose, and
w1ld roses are abundant there. The
damask roses Of our gardens 50 back
- n~-~~~n~ UVhow Dopo h~~~~h<
from It at the time Of the crusades-
although exactly when, or by whom,
nobody can certainly say.