The Rose: Flower for the month of June

The rose, one of the most beautiful of all flowers, is a symbol of fragrance and loveliness. Roses come in many colors, including various shades of pink, red, yellow and white. Rose growers are developing varieties of lavender and blue. Some roses, such as teas and hybrid teas, smell like tea or fruit. Others have a fragrant "rose" scent, and still others have little odor.

The most popular garden roses are all hybrids. This means they were bred with two different varieties. For example, hybrid teas were developed from the ever-blooming teas and the hardier hybrid perpetuals.

Roses grow in many parts of the world, in various soils and climates. They do especially well in temperate and mild climates. Roses thrive under cultivation, and thousands of varieties have been developed. Most roses are grown from slips, also called cuttings. But almost all new varieties start as seedlings. The best cultivated sorts seldom bear seeds, and if there are seeds, only a few are good. In double roses, the parts of the flower that produce seeds have changed to extra petals; and as a result, few seeds are possible.

The rose family is one of the most important of the plant kingdom and includes about 2,000 species of trees, shrubs and herbs. Some of the loveliest flowers and most valuable fruits belong to the rose family and include apples, pears, berries, peaches, apricots, plums and cherries. Plants from this family also provide many useful products.

Plants of the rose family have regular flowers. Each has five petals, a calyx with five lobes, many stamens and one or more carpels. Estimates of the number of species range from 30 to 250.

The rose is the national flower of Iran. Several states and a Canadian province have also chosen the rose as their official flower. The District of Columbia has taken the American Beauty rose. Georgia has chosen the Cherokee rose, a white Chinese rose. The wild rose is the flower of Iowa, North Dakota, and Alberta; and the rose is the designated flower for the month of June.

Roses pop up in other places, too. To name a few: A series of battles in English history are called the Wars of the Roses. Gertrude Stein is often quoted with, "A rose is a rose is a rose." A famous line by William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet is, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." A famous fairy tale by The Brothers Grimm is titled, "Snow White and Rose Red."