The rose that grows in many different forms in gardens all over the world today is an evolution of rose-like plants that lived in the northern hemisphere between 33 million and 23 million years ago. Traces of them have been found in the fossil record of the Oligocene epoch in Europe, Asia, and western North America.
The climate in those times was largely temperate with plentiful insect life, conditions that are still favoured by roses today. Five-petaled flowers, distinctive oval serrated leaves and colourful hips – characteristics that can be found in wild rose species today – differentiated them from other plant remains when the fossils were examined.
Mythological Origin & Symbolism
According to Greek mythology, the goddess of flowers, Chloris, created a new flower by breathing life into a woodland nymph who had died. Dionysus, the god of wine and plant life gave it a beautiful perfume, and Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and pleasure, gave the rose its name by rearranging the letters of Eros, her son and the god of love and desire. Eros later gave a rose to Harpocrates, the god of silence, as a bribe to ensure he kept the indiscretions of the gods to himself. Hence, the rose became symbolic of secrecy, silence, and love. This story was carried on into Roman mythology, with the protagonists replaced by their gods, Flora, Venus, Cupid, and Bacchus, although Harpocrates retained his Greek name.
The association with secrecy led to the rose becoming a visual symbol of the need for discretion. Roses were carved into the ceilings and walls of public rooms in grand houses, courtrooms, and Catholic confessionals as a reminder that all conversations should be kept confidential. From the Middle Ages, a rose was often suspended from the ceiling of a government council chamber to ensure the secrecy of proceedings. Therefore, sub rosa (“under the rose”) became a quasi-legal term still in use to denote something that is best kept under wraps.
Discovery of the Earliest Rose
The first rose species to be described for science came from the Florissant Fossil Beds in Teller County, Colorado USA. In 1883, paleobotanist Charles Leo Lesquereux wrote a scientific paper Contribution to the Fossil Flora of the Western Territories in which he described and named Rosa hilliae, the simple rose-like specimen he had received amongst samples collected by Hayden’s US Geological Survey and the Princeton Scientific Expedition of 1877.
His choice of name was to honour the amateur palaeontologist Charlotte Hill, who first brought the Florissant Fossil Beds to science’s attention. She lived with her family on a homestead, the Petrified Stump Ranch, c. 3 kilometres (2 mi) south of the town of Florissant. Charlotte began collecting fossils of plants and insects that she found when digging the land around their property and became fascinated by them, eventually building up a small museum and hosting many renowned geologists and palaeontologists to whom she gave parts of her collection.