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The Versatile, Well Travelled Rose We are all familiar with roses and their many and varied shapes and colours, but there is more to this family called Rosaceae than meets the eye. The reddish fruits or rosehips belong to an heirloom rose called Rosa rugosa or Rosa canina, and they are a rich source of vitamin C. The flowers, along with the fruit, can be used in herbal teas. This plant is a hardy little devil. It can cope with droughts and frosts, but it does prefer a sunny location. It grows to about 5 x 3 metres if it is not attacked by the secateurs. The photo with this article is of a rose garden across the Tasman that I recently helped breathe back to life from strangulation with weeds; however, it could be located in any temperate region in either hemisphere. All of the roses grown in our part of the world as well as in South Africa and South America have been carried by cultivation. Mrs Grieve's 1931 tome A Modern Herbal suggests that the birthplace of the cultivated rose was probably northern Persia (Iran) on the Caspian, or Faristan on the Gulf of Persia. She states that it was probably Greek colonists who brought it to southern Italy, and that the Romans knew and cultivated the red Provins rose (Rosa gallica). The word rosa comes from the Greek word rhodon (red), and the rose of the ancients was of a deep crimson colour. The Romans strew rose petals across their floors, scattered them at feasts and in the paths of victors, floated them in their wine, spread them beneath their chariot wheels and adorned the prows of their war vessels with them. To the Romans, the rose was a sign of pleasure, the companion of mirth and wine, but it was also used at their funerals. The Rosaceae family is notable for its many tannin-bearing plants, including blackberries, raspberries and hawthorn which are all used therapeutically for their tannin content. Tim Low in his book Wild Herbs of Australia and New Zealand has a feature on sweet briar (Rosa rubiginosa), a wild rose with five-petalled pink or white flowers and red, spiny hips. This plant can be found from the Mt Lofty Ranges in South Australia to Stanthorpe in Queensland. He believes that English missionaries took this plant to New Zealand as early as 1835, where it is now a serious weed. He also states that the Australian sweet briar hips yield 450–830 mg of vitamin C per 100 g of whole fruit, compared with about 50 mg for an equal weight of oranges. Varieties of Rosa rubiginosa, sweet briar or eglantine rose, have scented leaves and can be trained along a fence or used as hedging; they are a prime ingredient in potpourri. Varieties of Rosa damascena, the damask rose, have an extremely rich scent. Rosa moschata, the musk rose, can grow to six metres and has a subtle musky perfume. The petals dry well, retain their scent, and are highly antiseptic and astringent. On a more warm and fuzzy note, Dorothy Hall in The Zodiac Garden covers two of the star signs who she feels would benefit from having roses in their gardens. For Librans, she shows colour plates with a soft curve of pink perennials and climbing roses and a display of part of a Libran rose garden. In the Aries colour plates, she has a Roman soldier amongst red geraniums, red-leaved cherry, the scarlet claret ash and of course the red rose. She describes this as a prostrate bramble creeper (Rubus calycinus) that scrambles to cover rock edges. The difference between the two is that the Aries garden is bold red and striking, compared with the Libran rose garden which is more subtle and delicate. In her Libran garden, Hall has planted 'heritage' roses. Some of the species – types like the yellow Persian rose (Rosa foetida), the red Apothecary's rose (Rosa gallica officinalis), the dappled red and white beauty (Rosa gallica versicolour, also known as Rosa mundi) and the common rose (Rosa centifolia alba) – were her first choices. These were then followed by the lavender La Reine Victoria (Rosa mutabilis), with its open blooms changing colour from apricot to deepest crimson, and Souvenir de la Malmaison, with its myriad petals and wondrous perfume. In all, she has 36 roses vying for room and competing for fragrance from late spring to autumn. Around the edges of the central rose wheel are garlic chives to ward off aphids and keep the roses healthy. References |
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