The History Of Rose Plants
The history of rose plants seems to be as long as that of human beings; in fact roses might even be older than humans, if the apparent fossil evidence is correct. In a way, humans and roses have grown up together, so it’s no wonder why people all through history have cherished these flowers and included them in so many of their special occasions. People have admired their beauty and granted them special symbolism, and the meaning of roses has been entwined with humanity all through recorded history.
Roses certainly entered the myths of the world quite early on. Different types of roses have figured even in Hindu myths, where the rose occasionally rivals the more usual lotus flower. In Greek mythology, Chloris, the goddess of flowers, was said to have created the rose by turning a dead nymph into a flower and inviting all the gods to bestow gifts of beauty upon her. Rose plants came from a different source in Roman mythology, however. When the suitors of a young woman named Rodanthe became violent, the goddess Diana turned the woman into a rose, with the suitors as her thorns.
As far as historians can tell, it was in the lands that eventually amalgamated to become China that the first rose plants were explicitly cultivated five millennia ago. Whether the art of rose cultivation spread west from there, or whether cultures like Bronze Age Crete or the later Roman Empire learned this art independently, no one can say. But the Romans eventually prized these flowers so obsessively that they forced peasant farmers to learn rose gardening, turning entire farms to the growing of these bushes, so that city aristocrats could be supplied with the blooms for their baths, medicines and other uses.
People in European nations regard rose plants almost matter-of-factly, as an ordinary fact of life. But for several centuries, the plants seemed to have been forgotten, until the knights of the Crusades brought them back from the lands in which they had fought. Then the countries of Europe seemed to make up for lost time, adopting roses as the symbols of royal houses, and learning rose gardening with such enthusiasm that occasionally roses functioned as legal currency. Things have settled down since then, and roses have become as much beloved by ordinary people as they have often been by the aristocracy. As companions through history, human beings and roses have had a long, eventful partnership.
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