Rosewater is still used occasionally in cakes, but, during earlier centuries, roses flavored everything from jams and wines to poultry dishes. Dainty petal sandwiches delighted guests at Victorian teas.
Despite her delicate reputation, the rose can be one tough broad! Around here, if I wade through the poison ivy and briars of an abandoned farm, I am quite likely to stumble painfully across a cabbage rose or two, blooming away in the tall weeds--even after the house and barn have long disappeared.
Besides the "cabbages" (centifolias), the categories of old roses include gallicas, damasks, portlands, albas, mosses, bourbons, hybrid perpetuals, chinas, and rugosas. Three of my favorite heirloom varieties are the striped rosa Mundi (a mutation of the Apothecary Rose), wine-colored Tuscany (a.k.a. Old Velvet), and the luminous silky-pink Celsiana.
In the Victorian Language of Flowers, the meaning differed depending on the variety or color of the bloom. A burgundy rose, for example, praised "unconscious beauty," and a china rose "beauty always new." A savvy suitor would, however, never send his sweetheart a yellow rose which signalled "decrease of love," or the York & Lancaster variety which declared "war."
To the Church, the queen of flowers often represented Mary, "queen of heaven." It also stood for the creation and life symbolized by the rose windows in Gothic cathedrals. The rose has probably appeared on more coats of arms than any other emblem except the cross. In fact, it often appears with the cross, standing, perhaps, for the pain of the crucifixion and the glory of the resurrection. This flower teaches us that our most beautiful experiences may bloom from the thorny difficulties in our lives, and that we would not appreciate the joy so much without the pain which preceded it.
Perhaps T. S. Eliot had that thought in mind when he wrote, of the "Reality that is eternally underlying all things,": "All manner of things shall be well/ When the tongues of flame are in-folded/ Into the crowned Knot of the fire/ And the fire and the rose are one."
Note: Photos are by author, all rights reserved, and may not be copied or reproduced without author's permission. The ancient roses pictured in the first photo are, proceeding from the lower left clockwise, the Apothecary Rose, alba semi-plena, Tuscany, rosa mundi, and Quartre Saisons.
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