WILD ROSE

​

PLANT​—

Five-petaled flower with exposed center
Arching thorned stems, deep green in color
Compound leaves finely serrated
Rose hips round, orange, pink, or red, enclosing seeds

 

SEASON​—

Early summer flowering
Hips forming late summer
Fruit ripening toward autumn

 

 

ARCHIVE—

Egypt — rose placed in burial garlands and perfumed oils

Greece — sacred to Aphrodite; petals scattered in marriage rites

Medieval herbals — rose named among plants of Venus

Early English gardens — briar roses left growing at hedges and walls

Rose linked with Venus; five-petaled form noted as star-shaped in early diagrams

​

SONNET 54 — William Shakespeare, 1609

​

O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth

​

CORRESPONDENCES—

Taurus

Libra

Venus

 

 

NAMES—

Briar Rose

Dog Rose

Sweetbriar

Hedge Rose

Pasture Rose

Venus’s Rose

Nightingale Rose

 

​

​

​