Perhaps, there are as many myths and legends about a single plant as about a rose – this flower appeared on earth many millions of years ago and is still very popular with flower growers all over the world. Roses were revered in ancient Persia, and in Greece, and in France, but in Russia this flower was considered a pagan symbol for a long time. The high decorative qualities of this plant are sung in songs, odes and treatises are dedicated to it, many ancient families place it on their coats of arms.
Legends about the rose flower: where and how did these plants appear
According to archaeologists, roses have existed for about 35 million years – this is how the finds of petrified plants date back.
The history of the rose flower began in ancient India: it was from there that the first mention of this plant has come down to our days.
One of the treatises says that if a person brought a rose to the king, then according to the law he can ask the king for anything.
This manuscript does not say how the rose flower appeared, but there is a beautiful legend associated with it:
One day, in the opened rosebud, which consisted of 108 large and 1008 small petals, the most beautiful woman in the world appeared – Lakshmi. The guardian of the universe Vishnu, seeing her, kissed her and made her his wife.
According to this legend about the rose, Lakshmi became the goddess of beauty, and the plant itself became a symbol of divine mystery and a divine flower.
The first material confirmation of where roses appeared was found in the Altai mounds (5th-4th millennium BC) – they found silver coins with roses carved on them.
The rose was especially revered in Ancient Iran (Persia), and by the name of the rose – “gul” – this country was often called Gulistan.
There is a myth about rose flowers and the history of their origin here:
The Persian legend about the rose plant says: once the children of Flora came to Allah, complained about the eternally sleepy lotus and asked to appoint a new ruler instead of him; Allah appointed a white rose with sharp thorns as the ruler; seeing the new queen of flowers, the nightingale in delight pressed her chest so tightly that he hurt himself, and the petals became pinkish.
The descendants of the ancient Persians came up with a new myth about the rose, according to which a white flower grew from drops of sweat from the prophet Mohammed:
When he ascended to heaven at night, a red rose appeared from the sweat drops of the archangel Gabriel accompanying his ascent, and a yellow rose appeared from the sweat drops of the donkey that was under Mohammed.
Hence comes the respectful attitude of Muslims to the rose and their belief in the cleansing power of rose water.
Where did the rose come from: flower myths
The earliest depiction of roses in Europe are the frescoes of the Palace of Knossos in Crete, which date back to the 16th century. BC e. Around the same time, the rose was also widespread in Egypt. During the excavations of Egyptian tombs in 170 BC. e. wreaths of roses were discovered, which are so well preserved that it was even possible to establish their botanical appearance.
The ancient Greeks considered the rose a gift from the gods and believed that it appeared from the white foam that covered the body of Aphrodite, emerging from the sea at birth. Appreciating the new beautiful flower, the gods immediately sprinkled it with nectar, thanks to which the rose had the finest divine aroma. But the nectar did not make the flower immortal, because the evil forces envied its beauty.
The rose remained white until disaster struck. Aphrodite received word that her lover Adonis had been mortally wounded by a boar. Not understanding the path, the goddess of beauty ran to the scene of the tragedy. A few drops of her blood fell on the rose, and its petals turned from white to bright red.
Another myth about how red roses appeared says that Cupid gave this flower to the world. Once, during the feast of the gods, Cupid, fluttering, overturned a vessel with nectar, and this magical liquid gave the flowers a wonderful smell and dyed them red.
As you can see, each nation has its own legends about where the rose came from, and this adds to the attractiveness of the magnificent flower.
Legend where the name “rose” came from
If we talk about where the name “rose” came from, then the ancient Greeks are sure that it appeared thanks to the goddess Flora:
According to this myth about the rose, Flora managed to avoid meeting Cupid for quite some time, but he nevertheless overtook her and hit her with his arrow. Flora was inflamed with love, but now Cupid began to avoid her. In response, the goddess created a flower that would laugh and cry, combine sadness and joy. Seeing the flower, she wanted to dedicate it to her beloved and call it “Eros”, but she stumbled and said only “rose”, and since then everyone has called this flower a rose.
But this is not all versions!
Another legend about where the rose came from is also associated with Cupid:
Allegedly, the goddess of hunting, Diana, who was in love with him, once, in a fit of jealousy for the beautiful nymph Rosalia, killed her, injuring her with thorny thorn bushes. The grieved Cupid, having found the lifeless body of his beloved, began to cry, his tears fell on the thorns and turned into amazingly beautiful flowers – roses.
The ancient Greeks loved roses, these flowers were used to decorate dwellings, temples of numerous gods (and first of all, of course, Aphrodite) and public buildings, chariots and streets. They were worn on the head in the form of wreaths as a sign of mourning, they removed monuments and urns with ashes, as they believed that the smell of a rose would protect the remains from destruction and would be pleasing to the souls of the dead.
From Greece, the rose came to Rome, where it also became a favorite flower. The Romans cultivated roses for their petals. Petals were filled with aromatic pillows, added to perfumes, food, cosmetics, and on holidays they strewed floors with them. In ancient times, the technology for making aromatic oil from rose petals was already known.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the rose was forgotten for a while, because it was considered by Christians to be a pagan symbol. In the Middle Ages, the popularity of roses returned and, as the paintings of the time testify, they even became part of the cult of the Virgin Mary. During prayer, the monks touched the rosary, made from dry rose hips.
How many varieties of roses are there
Numerous varieties of roses appeared at the end of the 18th century.
Few people know another interesting fact about roses: it turns out that even Napoleon was engaged in rose growing. He invested heavily in the cultivation of roses. His wife at the Chateau de Malmaison collected the best collection of roses at that time.
It is known that cultivated roses originated from wild flowers. The most common of these is the wild rose, or “dog rose”, originally from Northern Europe. In the XTV century, the Crusaders brought Gallic and Damascus roses to Europe from the Middle East. They became the progenitors of, as they say now, old varieties.
And only in the XVIII century, Chinese roses came to France, and then to England. They differed by a longer flowering period.
The efforts of breeders in the late 18th and early 19th centuries were aimed at breeding varieties with repeated flowering, and these efforts were rewarded with a group of new varieties of roses, the so-called remontant (repeating flowering).
And from crossing remontant roses with tea and varieties of tea roses , hybrid tea roses were obtained from each other.
This group of roses with abundant long flowering, elegant double fragrant flowers, rich in shades of color, has become very widespread and now occupies a leading position in the assortment.
Polyanthus roses with a lush inflorescence of small flowers were formed as a result of crossing with one of the undersized Chinese roses. From polyanthus and hybrid tea varieties, floribunda roses with large flowers in inflorescences were obtained.
Varieties of modern roses appear constantly. Breeders created a group of park (shrub) roses. Among them there are ground cover varieties, the care of which is minimal, moreover, many of them are rooted.
How many varieties of roses are there in the world? Currently, the world assortment of roses has about 25 thousand varieties and forms. And, despite how many varieties of roses are already cultivated, more and more varieties are added to this number.
Roses have been held in high regard by all peoples since ancient times. The Romans considered roses a symbol of morality, the Greeks planted rose gardens around the temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, strewn the path of the newlyweds with rose petals. And rose water was one of the most common cosmetics.
Description of the rose plant and its photo
Here you can find a photo and description of a rose – one of the most beautiful flowers on Earth:
Roses are a separate genus of the Rosaceae family, which combines various types of cultivated (roses) and wild-growing (rose hips) species.
The description of a rose flower cannot be unambiguous, because outwardly these plants are very different: they are erect or creeping multi-stemmed shrubs, from 0.3 to 2.5 m high, and some evergreen climbing species reach 10 m. Woody stems and shoots are almost always covered with thorns of various sizes and shapes.
The only similarity in the description of the rose plant is the structure of their leaves: they are all complex, pinnate, in most species they consist of 5-7, sometimes 9-11 leaves.
Flowers of various colors, bisexual, solitary or collected in umbellate-paniculate inflorescences. In many garden species, they form on one-year-old wood. They bloom several times during the summer.
The fruits are nut-shaped, with a dense woody shell, ripen in August-September. They have from 3-5 to 100 or more seeds. Widely used in medicine.
Roses are distinguished by the shape of the bush, the aroma and color of the flowers. That is why they are used in a wide variety of plantings, combined with other plants, or gardens are created only from roses ( rosaries ).
Rose is a member of the Rosaceae family. To date, this genus includes about 400 species of wild roses, about 1000 subspecies and more than 30 thousand varieties. And every year there are more and more varieties and hybrids, and it becomes more and more difficult to classify them. This huge economy requires systematization, and this process is ongoing.
For many years there was confusion in the international rose community, as the standards adopted in each country differed significantly. For decades, work has been going on to compile a unified classification of roses, and in 1976 the World Federation of Rose Societies approved a unified classification of roses, which was based on their decorative and biological characteristics, and not on their origin.
Since then, of course, there have been changes, new varieties are added to the list, new groups are included.
Such a systematization is of practical importance not only for science, but also for every gardener: knowing which group a particular variety belongs to, the grower can find out what conditions the plant needs, where it is better to plant it and how to care for it.
