A rose is a rose has a long history

Some things you may not have known about roses and how they have been as integral a part of our past as they are of our present.

-A rose by any other name... according to Greek Mythology, it was Aphrodite who gave the rose its name.

-Wherefore art thou rose? In the readings of Shakespeare, of course. He refers to roses more than 50 times throughout his writings.

-Leave it to the romantic French to be the ones to first deliver roses. It was in the seventeenth century that French explorer Samuel deChamplain brought the first cultivated roses to North America.

-Roses are truly ageless. Recently, archaeologists discovered the fossilized remains of wild roses over 34 million years old.

-Confucius wrote that during his life (551-479 B.C.), the Emperor of China owned over 600 books about the culture of Roses. The Chinese extracted oil of roses from the plants grown in the Emperor's garden. The oil was only used by nobles and dignitaries of the court. If a commoner were found in possession of even the smallest amount, he was condemned to death!

-1,000 years old. That's the age the world's oldest living rose is thought to be. Today it continues to flourish on the wall of the Hildesheim Cathedral of Germany.

-The rose is a legend in it's own. The story goes that during the Roman empire, there was an incredibly beautiful maiden named Rhodanthe. Her beauty drew many zealous suitors who pursued her relentlessly. Exhausted by their pursuit, Rhodanthe was forced to take refuge from her suitors in the temple of her friend Diana. Unfortunately, Diana became jealous. And when the suitors broke down her temple gates to get near their beloved Rhodanthe she also became angry, turning Rhodanthe into a rose and her suitors into thorns.

-Since classical times, the rose has been a symbol of secrecy. In sixteenth-century England, a rose was sometimes worn behind the ear by servants, tavern workers, and others to indicate that the wearer heard all and told nothing. In Germany, roses in a dining room suggested that diners could speak freely without fear that their secrets would travel beyond the room. The expression sub rosa, "under the rose," is thought to originate in the custom of carving a rose over the door of the confessional in a Catholic church.

-Rose folklore includes stories of the English planting rose bushes beside their front and back doors believing that at night, the evil spirits would get caught in the thorns and kept from entering into their homes. Every morning the bushes would be gently shaken to release the spirits.