Short history on roses In the beginning only wild roses were to be found. These flowers went through a series of genetic transformations which origin is still unknown. Later, due to human intervention, it shape evolve overtime leaving us multiple forms and colors or varieties that we now find at the local florist like O’Hara’s, David Austin and Haiku among others.
Roses belong to the family Rosacea, which also embraces other agricultural plants like apple, pear, cherry, plum, strawberry and other ornamental plants. However, the rose is the only one in the genus Rose with certain characteristics: woody plant stems provided with sharp prickles and flowers usually with five petals
In the beginning only wild roses were to be found. They went through a series of genetic transformations which origin is still unknown. Later, due to human intervention, it shape evolve overtime leaving us multiple forms and colors or varieties that we now find at the local florist or wholesale roses resellers, like O’Hara’s, David Austin and Haiku among others.
This flowers became so popular that they are the main decoration in birthdays, wedding bouquets or baptism.
There are two mayor groups that separate Roses, modern and antique. It is generally accepted for roses dated before 1920’s to be antique.
Even though, modern and antique roses may not differ too much, a couple of elements can help us differentiate them.
Modern roses have big bright leafs with five leaflets, spaced through the branches and their shape is almost the same among varieties. The stem of the contemporary roses, armed with strong thorns, are straighter and rigid.
Antique roses have leafs with varied textures, formed by a bigger number of leaflets of smaller size. On the other hand antique roses usually are more languid, flexible with smaller but numerous thorns.
Mayor classification
The botanical garden is a place where plants are found classified, it’s a suitable place to find the different classes of roses. Wild roses
The wild Roses are bushy plants that can be found in nature. Most of the time the geographic origin is referenced. Is interesting to point out that we can find wild species from the Arctic Circle (Rosa acicularis) but in the southern hemisphere we cannot find any autochthonous specie. The first varieties
Some roses are identified with a single name without indicating date or name of the person that reproduced them. These are the most antique roses and belong to our vegetable heritage. In some cases their origin is still a mystery. Are they the product of human intervention? Were they born by hybridization or seed selection? Was it the bees or the wind? It was only until the XIX century that the first classifications appear from a few enthusiasts. If you really want to know the ancient ones you may refer to Greek or Roman literature Herodotus, Theophrastus and Plinio.