THE ROSE 



Four States consider the rose, in one form 

 or another, their emblematic flower. New York 

 school children adopted the rose without any 

 adjective limiting the selection. Georgia, by 

 legislative resolution, considers the Cherokee 

 rose as her flower. Iowa, by the same method 

 of choice, made the wild rose hers. North Da- 

 kota's legislature selected the wild prairie rose 

 for that State. 



The Cherokee rose, which has white petals 

 and yellow stamens, was imported from China 

 and is believed by botanists to be the one from 

 which the Chinese developed the fragrant 

 double Banksian roses. 



Certain it is that from the standpoint of the 

 florist, if not from the standpoint of general 

 sentiment, the rose is our national flower. And 

 yet the florist's rose, which delights milady's 

 boudoir with its fragrance as well as with its 

 beauty, is one of the most imperfect of flowers. 

 To the wild flowers it is deformed, a freak, 

 unable to fight its own way in the war of blos- 

 soms for place and position. 



That busybody, man, who is always mak- 

 ing flower and insect, plant and animal, all 

 serve his purposes, went out and gathered 

 some natural roses and started to make them 

 over to meet his own ideals of beauty and 

 fragrance. But how he did interfere with their 

 perfection when he tried to magnify their 

 beauty ! He, in very fact, made them unfit for 

 survival in the garden of Nature. No natural 

 rose was ever such a poor seed-bearer as the 

 American Beauty or Jacqueminot. Set these 

 out to fight for themselves and they would dis- 

 appear forever — for the more perfect the rose, 

 from the flower-show standpoint, the more im- 

 perfect from a natural standpoint. And why? 

 When the florist took this rose in hand he 

 concluded it had too many stamens and not 

 enough petals, so one by one he converted the 

 stamens into petals, step by step he bred out 

 of the flower the ability to set seed and bred 

 into it the quality of looking handsome, until 

 it is what we have today. 



Other flowers, like the lotus of Egypt, the 

 chrysanthemum of Japan, come and go, but 

 still the rose is queen of the flower world. 

 That maiden of ancient civilization who sang 

 of it as being full of love ; the servant of Aph- 

 rodite, cradling itself on its nodding stalk and 

 playing with the smiling zephyrs which kiss it 

 as they pass, beautifully expressed what many 

 a modern admirer of the rose has felt. 



Again, the rose is as famous in legend and 

 history as for its beauty and fragrance. 



For three hundred years the youngest peer 

 of France, on the first day of May, brought to 

 the court in an elaborate silver bowl the an- 

 nual tribute of roses. In Egypt mattresses for 

 the wealthy were made from the flowers' sun- 

 dried petals. The Romans placed them at the 

 entrance of the banquet hall when the things 

 which transpired within were not to be men- 

 tioned without ; hence our "sub rosa." In 

 China roses play an important part in funera-l 

 rites, and in some parts of Europe girls prick 

 their fingers, extract a drop of blood, and bury 

 it und-er a rose bush to insure the color in 

 their cheeks. 



Then there is the commercial side of rose 

 culture. It is said that there are more than 

 100,000,000 of the cut blossoms sold annually 

 in the United States. Many new varieties are 

 propagated each year. One European col- 

 lector, trying to keep pace with the constant 

 additions to the list, has gathered 4,200 differ- 

 ent kinds and still finds his collection incom- 

 plete. 



How long it has been since man first learned 

 to develop new qualities in the rose is not 

 known. That the Romans knew the secret of 

 flower breeding is certain. And it appears that 

 perhaps in even more remote time the Japanese 

 and Chinese gardeners were crossing varieties 

 and producing hybrid species. The trade in 

 attar of roses has been hard hit by the war, and 

 many are the hands that once labored to de- 

 light the world with the bottled fragrance of 

 the rose, but which now work to produce the 

 death-dealing thunderbolts. It requires ten 

 tons of rose petals to make a pound of the 

 attar — 20,000 pounds concentrated into one ! A 

 pound of this luxurious perfume is worth $200. 



THE WILD ROSE 

 (Rosa Carolina L. ; Rosa humilis Marsh) 



There is nothing about the simple loveliness 

 of the wild rose to suggest that she is a queen 

 who has never come into her own ; yet, as the 

 original from which all the reigning beauties 

 of the rose-fancier's garden and the florist's 

 window have been developed, royal honors are 

 her due. She resembles rather a little flower 

 princess too fragile to brave the dangers of 

 rocky hillsides or meadows close to busy high- 

 ways. However, Nature has provided this 

 seeming innocent with arms for protection 

 and wiles for perpetuation (see page 506). 



Sharp downward-turning ! prickles discour- 

 age cattle from eating the foliage and prevent 

 the field mice from climbing 1 the stems to steal 

 the fruit in the autumn, when the hips, or ber- 

 ries, are ripe. These prickles also help the 

 plant to hold its position when it grows on the 

 side of a bank. 



The delicate fragrance of the usually soli- 

 tary pink blossoms, and the solid center of 

 bright yellow stamens, rich with pollen, attract 

 a variety of insects. Bumblebees, requiring a 

 firmer support than the petals would give, 

 alight directly on the center of the flower, so 

 that pollen from other flowers is likely to 

 reach the pistil. Occasionally self-fertilization 

 takes place in a simply constructed blossom 

 which yields abundant pollen. 



"The wild rose never outstays St. Mary 

 Magdalen," is a fairly true English saying, for 

 her day, July 22d, generally ends its season. 

 Each delicate flower has about two days of 

 life. During rainy weather the petals fold 

 over the green stigmas and the j^ellow stamens 

 to protect them from moisture. The blossom 

 closes with the last rays of daylight and re- 

 opens as the sun dispels the darkness, so that 

 only the careful observer and the early riser 

 realize that it "draws the drapery of its couch 



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