Commercial Floriculture

Origin & History

• It is said that rose came first and man afterwards. It is estimated to be more than 30 million years old.
• According to Klougart and Fairbrother (1966), the history of man and of the rose is linked together for about 5000 years.
• The rose was called ‘Queen of flowers’ by ‘Sappho’ a poetess more than 2500 years ago.
• No other flower has such a remarkable written record.
• There is evidence that, roses reached Rome before Christ.
• Preparation of rose water and attar was also in practice even before the 17th century. Rose is the favored flower of Venus.

  “The rose is the perfume of the Gods, the joy of men, it adores and graces at the blossoming of love”.

Myths and legends on the early history and evolution of roses.
• It is said that when ‘Cybele’ became angry with ‘Venus’, she took her revenge by bringing to life something more beautiful than the Goddess of beauty herself and thus created the roses.
• According to Myth story the rose blooming in the ‘Garden of Eden’ was white in colour and became red when ‘Eve’ (Acc to Bible she is the first women name mentioned in Bible) saw it and kissed it.
• Another story relates that, roses which were originally white which became red from the blood of ‘Venus’ dropped from her foot wounded by a thorn while hurrying through.
• According to a Legendry story, once Lord ‘Vishnu’ taking bath and Lord ‘Brahma’ came out of one lotus and claimed that, lotus is the beautiful flower in the Universe.
• Then vishnu took ‘Brahma’ to his Paradise ‘Vaikunta’ and showed him a rose flower which was very beautiful with “Pale Moon Beam colour and heavenly fragrance”. After seeing this Brahma also agreed rose is the most beautiful than lotus.
• Muslim’s believed that, the roses were born from the sweat of the Prophet Mohammed and hence, they show great respect to rose.
• The Roman king ‘Nero’ loved rose so much that, he had them every where in his palace. Flower petals were used by the women in their baths and for the decoration of special beds, feasts and graves.
• Rose is also mentioned in the Bible and is believed to be known before the Bible era and was under cultivation before the birth of Christ.

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Distribution:
• There are about 150 recognized and described species were identified; all are indigenous to the ‘temperate regions of the northern hemisphere’ have been reported to be growing.
• In India, several species are found growing wild mostly in the Himalayan ranges.
• There are eleven species were reported to be growing wild in India. They are as follows,
  1. Rosa brunonii (Himalayan Musk rose),
  2. R. eglanteria (Syn R.. foetida, Austrian rose),
  3. R. involucrate (Syn. R. sempervirens),
  4. R. leschenaultiana (Syn. R. sempervirens),
  5. R. longicuspis,
  6. R. macrophylla,
  7. R. moschata (Musk rose),
  8. R. rubiginosa (Sweet briar Eglantine rose),
  9. R. walpoleana,
  10. R. sericea (Ladakh rose)
  11. R. multiflora
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