One of my favorite garden delights is the rose. This year the Tulsa Herb Society has chosen the Rose as the Herb of the Year 2012. THS is not alone: The International Herb Association has chosen the Rose as their Herb of the Year 2012. The rose is also our national flower. A favorite line discovered while preparing this article comes from Better Homes and Gardens NEW GARDEN BOOK: “In spite of the fact that the rose is one of the oldest cultivated flowers, it still has not learned to take care of itself”
When you think of a rose, what comes to mind? As a woman: love, romance, beauty, the language of flowers; as an herbie: scented rooms, potpourri, dried flowers, flower crafting, pressed roses; as a cook: rose butter, rose cream cheese, rose syrup, rose jelly, rose sorbet, rose hips; as a gardener: care giving, hard work, flower arrangements, landscaping with rose borders, rose bushes, rose trees, climbers. As an artist and a dreamer: the rose offers mind boggling variety and opportunity.
In preparing this article, I find that there is too much need-to-know information to stick to one article. So I propose to continue the rose throughout 2012. Some common terms concerning roses are included here to get us all talking the same language.
Achenes: small fruit, each of which contains a single seed
Aggregate fruit: fruit formed from the merger of different ovaries of a single flower
Hypanthium: a floral structure consisting of the bases of the sepals, petals, and stamens fused together.
Pinnate: resembling a feather, having parts or branches arranged on each side of a common axis with one leaflet on the end.
Prickles: outgrowths of the epidermis and appear as sickle-shaped hooks.
Rose hip: The fruit of the rose which contains the seeds
Sepals: These are the green coverings of a flower bud that open to reveal the petals of the rose.
Stipules: the pair of green flaps at the base of the leaf
We have used our eyes and our nose to experience a rose, but have you tried to put a rose into words?
Rose plants range in size from compact, miniature roses, to climbers that can reach 7 meters in height.
The leaves are borne alternately on the stem. In most species they are 5 to 15 centimeters (2.0 to 5.9 in) long, pinnate with (3 up to 13) leaflets and basal stipules.
The leaflets usually have a serrated margin, and often a few small prickles on the underside of the stem.
The flowers have petals with sepals. Roses usually have 5 sepals beneath the petals. Roses can have from 4 petals to over 100 petals.
The aggregate fruit of the rose is a berry-like structure called a rose hip. The hips of most species are red, but a few have dark purple to black hips.
Each hip comprises an outer fleshy layer, the hypanthium .which contains 5–160 "seeds" (technically dry single-seeded fruits called achenes embedded in a matrix of fine, but stiff, hairs.)
While the sharp objects along a rose stem are commonly called "thorns", they are technically prickles .
o Better Homes and Gardens NEW GARDEN BOOK
o The American Rose Society, P O Box 300001, Shreveport LA 71130
o David Austin Handbook of Roses 2011 15059 State Highway 64 West, Tyler TX 75704
o Roses Inc. Tulsa. Newsletter Jan/2012, 13201 South 129 E Ave | Broken Arrow | OK | 74011
WIKIPEDIA, the free encyclopedia
o The Edible Flower Garden by Rosalind Creasy, c 1999, Periplus
o Potpourri by Gail Duff c 1990, Crescent Books
o A Handbook of Edible Flowers by Florence G. Dale and Charles J. Ziga, c 1999, Barnes & Noble books
o American Rose Annual, 2003, The American Rose Society P O Box 300001, Shreveport LA 71130
o Tulsa Rose Society 1825 W Lincoln St, Broken Arrow, OK 74012-8509