Roses are the “queen of flowers”, and they have earned this title: from Romeo and Juliet To beauty and the Beast and abc the Bachelor According to the franchise, roses are an enduring symbol of passion, romance, and love. It is estimated that even more 250 million roses These are produced every year for Valentine’s Day and florists sell more on that day than on any other holiday. It is also the official flower of the United States (thanks to former President Ronald Reagan). But the rose wasn’t always so majestic, red and plump – in fact, its origins are humbler and more ancient than you might think.
Roses first emerged during the Eocene epoch, about 35 million years ago, when early horses and canids first appeared. And the flowers probably looked very different from the bunches we picked today: a 2025 analysis Roses collected throughout China revealed that the ancestors of modern roses were probably yellow, not red. Peter Kukielski, an expert on roses and author of the book, points out that their petals were also flat, and there were probably only five of them. Rosa: The Story of the Rose.
Thankfully for roses, in addition to their beauty, they also have important medicinal properties — rose hips are packed with vitamin C — and this helped give the flower a high status among rulers throughout history, who “brought the rose to prominence,” says Kukielski. For example, it is said about Cleopatra sank the sails of his boat In pink perfume when she visited the Roman general Mark Antony.
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Modern roses, as we know them, date back to 1867, when enthusiasts in Europe cultivated “hybrid evergreen” roses with “tea roses.” The product, a “hybrid tea” rose, was of the classic rose shape – a pointed bud held high on a stem.
After that, the rose industry really flourished. “This flower motif became very popular,” says Kukielski. In fact, if you’re lucky enough to receive a bouquet of roses for Valentine’s Day this year, chances are it’s a hybrid rose, although hybrid tea roses are one of these. more than 40 classes Of flower.
But hybridization had its own side effects. Kukielski says that by breeding roses for their size, the hearty flower that has survived in the wild for millions of years was weakened, losing some of its disease resistance. “People were so desperate for this flower to produce roses that, genetically, things became extinct,” he says. The flowers have also lost most of their fragrance.
Roses are changing even today. Biologists are working to make roses more disease-resistant so they can be grown without harsh or toxic chemicals and eliminate some of the evolutionary interference from humans. Some growers have begun to pay more attention to the roses that are suitable for their local climateKukielski says.
Flowers may grow even further: in 2024 Research published in Science It was suggested that the types of “thorns” found on roses and other plants arose from mutations in a single gene. The authors wrote that these findings could “pave the way” for scientists to create roses without such thorns (which are technically considered “thorns” rather than true thorns) using gene editing.
At least so far, no other flower has come close to removing the rose from its throne. And as far as Kukielski is concerned, that’s the way it should be.
“This one plant has the potential to transcend all of our generations,” he says, “and I think that’s special.”
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