WEBVTT - Roses Through Time 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.320 Support for stuff you missed in History class comes from 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:05.000 our friends at Rocket Mortgage. By Quick and Loans. You're 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:07.120 confident when it comes to your work in your life, 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:09.840 Rocket Mortgage gives you that same confidence when it comes 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:13.480 to refinancing your existing mortgage or buying a home. It 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:15.880 enables you to understand all of the details so you 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:18.440 can be confident that you are getting the correct mortgage 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:21.680 for you. Go to Rocket mortgage dot com slash history. 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:27.120 That's Rocket mortgage dot com slash history. Welcome to stuff 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:36.720 you missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot com. 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:39.360 Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frying and 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:43.360 I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and we're doing an episode that 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.920 is uh, you know, selfish because something I wanted to 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:49.960 talk about for a long time, which is roses. Uh 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.680 because I love roses, but I am admittedly a total 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.520 amateur in the garden. Our house when we bought it 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.840 came with a lot of roses, some of which are entertainingly. 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.240 They have reviewed themselves to me to be poorly chosen 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:05.880 for the spots there is whoops, but like they're lovely. 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:09.720 We have the most beautiful red roses that bloom like 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.320 crazy every spring and summer and right into fall that 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.319 are right next to the steps on either side of 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:19.200 the railings. But they're climbing roses, and so in the 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.319 summer we literally have to cut them back almost every 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.200 day because they just keep coming into the walkway. And 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:27.920 it's like, these are so beautiful and they're so hearty 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:29.880 and healthy, and I really love them. But whoever picked 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:33.360 them maybe didn't realize what kind they were. Um, and 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:37.640 then I add to our little collection periodically. I'm I'm 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:39.919 a lady who does not know that much about my roses, 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:41.640 but I love them dearly. I've bought a few of 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:45.160 the the fun hybrids of late in the past few years. So, 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:47.520 but I also had to wait until now all of 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:50.360 this is saying to do this episode one June is 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:52.560 a very prolific time for roses, so it's kind of 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.520 thematically right. But um, I knew that if we did 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:58.160 this episode two early in the spring, that I would 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.080 be tempted to buy a lot more this as a consequence, 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.080 and I'm already kind of out of space for places 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:05.720 to put them. So I had to wait until we 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:08.359 were at the point when growers and nurseries won't ship 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:10.840 to us anymore because we're out of the planting season. 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:14.400 So you're getting this in late June so that I 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:18.920 can manage my own online shopping problems. That seems legitimate 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:25.840 the history of RUSS. I conversely have an episode that 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.680 I've been wanting to do for a while that has 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:34.680 just been painful to work on, and I still have 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.880 not finished it and it's been weeks. So we'll surprise 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:42.280 everyone with which episodes those are slash that is, when 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.120 they come out. Yeah, sometimes Tracy and I had to 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:49.160 be careful about how we manage our own subjects. Uh 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:50.959 And just as a caveat, I kind of said a 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:54.679 similar thing at the beginning of our History of Veterinary Medicine. 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:57.280 This is, you know, definitely an overview. A lot has 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:01.000 happened in the literal millions of years since roses have 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:04.840 existed on this planet. Uh. So we can't cover every 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.399 bit of minutia, but we're giving you the broad strokes 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:10.680 of like the key moments. And on that note, In 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:14.520 a history of Roses prepared for the American Rose Society, 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:19.000 historian Jerry Haynes wrote, quote, Roses are incredibly complex and 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:22.799 many Rosarians are opinionated. That makes for a which is 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:27.880 brew of nonaligned thinking and some downright nasty disagreements. You 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:29.880 may have heard the saying that I went to a 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:33.240 fight and a rose meeting broke out. This is because 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.560 there is a lot of room for conjecture, angry opinions, 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:41.360 and wild guesses. This sort of made me laugh one 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:44.200 because I had never heard that expression, but it's quite 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.080 delightful and too. It made me think of Doubton Abbey, 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:54.640 where there's some rose drama on the show. I actually 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:58.000 have a Doubton Abbey rose in my garden now, which 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.400 is named for violet. But this one genus of plant 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.000 is perhaps the most famed in human history. I would 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:05.480 go so far as to say it is, but I'm 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:09.480 always a little bit reticent about superlatives. But it's the 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:13.040 most famous. It's revered for its beauty, it's used symbolically. 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.760 Of course, it's made into consumables. There is a war 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.240 named after them. We'll touch on that briefly. And in 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.640 President Ronald Reagan made the rose the national floral emblem 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:26.400 of the United States. But roses predate civilization as we 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:29.440 know it by a significant margin. Yeah, they've existed for 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.159 literally millions of years, but the image of the rose 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.640 that you probably think of doesn't look much like the 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.800 ones blooming in Asia as far back as an estimated 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.840 seventy million years ago, or in North America thirty five 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:47.200 million years ago. Ancient wild roses were fairly simple as 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.479 some wild roses still today are, but even more simple 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.960 than that. Many had only five pedals that bloomed into 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:57.200 sort of a disc like shape. And curiously, roses are 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:02.240 Northern Hemisphere natives. It's not yet understood why they are 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:06.160 native to more than one continent in the Northern Hemisphere 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:10.760 but not to the Southern Hemisphere. Yeah, I think you can, 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:13.800 probably if you're a very good gardener, transplant sum but 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:18.120 in terms of naturally growing, they just have never sprung 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:22.560 up there. The oldest of roses are considered the species roses, 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:25.119 So these are varieties of roses that developed in nature 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.839 without human intervention. So those ancient ancient ones as well 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.760 as as more recent ones but that are still uncultivated, 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.000 and those became the basis of all cultivated roses. But 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:37.400 for a long time they did just find on their own, 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.359 and there are some species rose groups that continue to 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:42.920 grow today and that you can even purchase, as well 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:44.880 as some that are just growing in the wild. And 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:47.279 in addition to their simple blooms, they had some of 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.480 the hallmarks of roses, so thorns, sepals, and hips, just 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:52.840 like your modern roses, but they looked a little different. 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:57.200 Roses have appeared in art and Minoan crete dating back 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:01.880 to se b C. And Egypti floral reade stated Circle 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:06.120 one seventy CE feature a species of roses actually still 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.880 living today. This is the Rosa ricardi, also known as 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.480 the Rosa sancta, and it's colloquially known as the Holy 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:17.720 rose of Abyssinia. In the fifth century b c. Herodotus 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:20.960 wrote of a garden in Macedonia that housed roses, but 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.400 what exact kinds of roses were there remains a matter 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:27.560 of guesswork. There are also Biblical references to roses, but similarly, 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:31.600 it's unclear if those references are correctly translated, or if 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.039 the flowers in the text were actually something else, and 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:36.640 then in translation rose kind of got subbed in for 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:41.040 a flowering plant. Humans began cultivating roses starting roughly five 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:44.520 thousand years ago. The oldest species of rose that continues 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:47.000 today is the Rosa gallica, which is also called a 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:50.359 French rose, that dates back to twelve hundred BC and 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.320 has been growing in Asia and parts of Europe since 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.239 that time. Yeah, a lot of roses invoke French names, 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:59.000 just f y I, they're not all the same. The 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.880 Damas grows, known by its Latin name Rosa demascena and 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:05.760 named for Damascus, is a descendant of that French rose. 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:09.680 It has been around since at least nine Variations of 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:13.520 the Damas groves developed through cross breeding became common eventually, 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:17.440 and as the Roman Empire came into power, roses really 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:21.560 really benefited. In the eastern parts of the Roman Empire, 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.880 roses became incredibly popular, not just for their beauty, but 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:28.480 for a wide range of other uses. So important was 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.360 the rose and Roman culture that massive public rose gardens 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:35.320 were established, and of course, fragrant roses were used to 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:39.360 create perfumes. Various parts of the plants were and still 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:43.160 are commonly used as curatives, and rose petals were used 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:45.960 in Roman times to create natural confetti, which is sort 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.880 of a lovely image. Throughout the Mediterranean during the Roman Empire, 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:53.200 rose based products, as well as the plants themselves were 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.800 bartered among various cultures as they traveled their usual trade routes. 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:00.360 The first known catalog of roses in the Western world 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:04.080 was compiled circus three BC by a Greek scientist and 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:09.800 philosopher name Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle. Theophrastus is sometimes 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.160 called the father of botany for his extensive writing on plants, 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:17.520 and his rose related research provides some of the earliest 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:21.240 detailed analyzes of their physical composition. And in the first 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.440 century Pliny the Elder wrote about roses. He talked of 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.600 them being manipulated into blooming in the off season, sometimes 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.640 over and over in various locations, because those multi blooms 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.160 we're going to talk about later, we're not naturally occurring. 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.480 As roses have been cultivated by humans, they've also taken 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:42.599 on various symbolic associations, including meanings based on their colors. 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:45.560 Of course, during the War of the Roses, York was 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:49.439 represented by white roses and Lancaster by red. The white 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.199 York rose Rosa alba, dates back to the second century on. 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:58.520 These roses continue to exist today, flourishing in naturally colder climates. Yeah, 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:02.360 they need a little winter to actually succeed. This is 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.840 a thing about roses that I was completely misinformed on 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.480 and understood only much more recently. Like in my head, 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:15.360 roses were much more delicate and required pretty uh temperate 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:20.000 climate year round. And then my first springtime in Boston 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:21.880 and I would walk through our neighborhood and they would 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:26.280 just be these beautiful roses flourishing everywhere. I did not 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.640 know that was possible, And then I felt ignorant. If 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:31.760 you haven't been around him, Uh yeah, I mean a 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:33.719 lot of roses are very very hearty. It's one of 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.439 the reasons they've become so popular globally is that, again, 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.400 if you're living in the northern hemisphere, they often do 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.200 very well with very very little effort on the part 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.920 of amateur gardeners. Almost anyone can grow rose. Uh. And 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:49.559 one rose in particular that's noted in Europe in the 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:53.400 late fift hundreds is the rosa centifolia, and santifolia means 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:55.880 one hundred leaves, and these flowers are also known as 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:59.560 cabbage roses because of their round, thickly petaled blooms. At 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.920 that point, leaves is actually probably referring to pebbles. That 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.640 nomenclature didn't really exist, but Plyby and the Aphrastus both 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:09.320 wrote about roses with a hundred leaves, but there was 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:13.080 no clear evidence of such roses existing until the late 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:15.800 sixteenth century. Like, we had these two writings that referenced them, 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:18.240 but we didn't really have anything that resembled the hundred 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.679 leaf rose until we started seeing them pretty commonly in 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.840 the sixteenth century. There is reference to a rose in 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:29.600 the book herbal written by John Garrard, and that describes 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.800 roses that seemed to align with these hundred leaved flowers 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.520 that were described in older writings. It didn't get the 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:39.640 nickname cabbage rose until the seventeen hundreds, though. And coming up, 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.680 we're going to talk about the roses of seventeenth century Europe. 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:44.440 But first we're gonna take a little break so we 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:50.040 can hear from one of our sponsors. This episode of 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.560 stuff you missed in history classes brought to you by Casper. 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:55.000 I've said before, I have sort of a love hate 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:57.800 relationship with sleep, Like sleep feels great, but I wish 0:10:57.800 --> 0:10:59.480 I didn't have to do it. However, I have to 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:01.760 admit this, since I got a Casper, I'm way more 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.480 into sleep than I used to be. I all caps 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:06.880 love my Casper. It has made such a huge change 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:08.960 in my life and the quality of the sleeps that 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.280 I get. 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That botanist John Parkinson described two kinds of 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.080 white roses, one thicker and more abundant with flowers than 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.840 the other, although he noted the differences could be caused 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:23.319 by environmental factors, saying quote, some do judge these to 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.480 be but one kind, the diversity happening by the air 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:30.160 or ground, or both. Parkinson wrote as well, of a 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:34.160 carnation rose, using the Latin rosa incarnata, and at this 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.079 point the use of the word carnation was associated with 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:40.160 basically the scan tone of white people, so it's likely 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:44.080 that he was writing of a pale, pinkish bloom. Throughout 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:47.479 the sixteen hundreds, roses went through a massive surge in popularity, 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.360 and they were so valued that roses and even rose 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.800 water were sometimes used as currency in Europe, and by 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.920 that time they were also very common as part of 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:01.360 medical treatments. Paradisis terrestris, one of Parkinson's books, is the 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:05.160 first English book to discuss roses as garden plants rather 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.520 than as medicinal plants. Roses had, of course, has been 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:10.960 grown for their beauty before that time, both in England 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.640 and elsewhere, but most writing about them had a lot 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.360 more to do with their practical uses instead of their 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:20.360 visual appeal. Initially, even roses grown in the garden setting 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.040 weren't really the focal point of any landscape plan. They 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.679 tended to be relegated to the edges. But eventually they 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:29.040 came into uses hedges and its accents, and then slowly 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:31.679 kind of moved to be the center of some gardens. 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.439 The writings about roses being used medicinal ng are also 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:40.040 clouded by poor nomenclature and classification. For example, the word 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.320 rose or rosa became so commonly used that it started 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:45.679 to apply to other plants or flowers that were not 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:50.000 actually roses. Additionally, the plants were often described with less 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.000 than ideal to tail, for modern readers to figure out 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.679 just what specific plant the writer might have been talking about. 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.600 I know I ran into that difficulty when I was 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:03.440 looking artwork to go with this episode, and I just, Uh, 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:06.040 the farther that I went back in art, the more 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:10.600 I was like, I'm not sure that's actually a rose. Yeah, yeah, 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:12.640 there are some that, like you said, they just got 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:16.160 subedright in that's a very pretty cuss of petals called 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:20.400 rose uh. Incidentally, Parkinson was also the first writer to 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:24.080 describe a native North American rose species being grown in Europe, 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.920 so it had traveled across the Atlantic and back. In 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:30.080 sixty he wrote Theatrum botanic Um, and he said in 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.880 it quote, the Virginia briar rose hath diverse as great 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.480 stems and branches as any other rose, whose young are 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:41.000 green and the elder grayish, set with many small prickles 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:43.800 and a few great thorns among them. The leaves are 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:47.880 very green and shining, small and almost round, many set 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.640 on a middle rib, one against the other, somewhat like 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.280 unto the single yellow rose. The flower stand at the 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:57.400 tops of the branches, consisting of five small leaves or 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:00.920 a pale purple or deep incarnate color like unto those 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:05.040 the sweetbriar, which fall away quickly as those and others do. 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:09.280 In the mid sixteen hundreds, herbalist Nicholas Culpepper wrote a 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.720 book titled herbal And which he discussed the many health 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.280 benefits roses had to offer. He wrote, quote, the white 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.000 and red roses are cooling and drying, and yet the 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.080 white is taken to exceed red in both the properties 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.640 but as seldom used inwardly in any medicine. The bitterness 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:29.160 and the roses when they are fresh, especially the juice purges, 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:33.200 color and watery humors. But being dried and the heat 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.440 which caused the bitterness being consumed, they have then a 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:41.840 binding and a stringent quality. Culpepper was full of ideas 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.760 about roses medicinal qualities. UH. He suggested that an extract 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.320 made from red roses could be combined with wine to 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:52.160 treat headaches, ear ache, soreris, sore throat, or irritated gums. 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:54.160 I will confess that part of me is like, are 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.880 you maybe just drunk and you don't feel sick anymore? Um, 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:02.080 that's the case with so many patent men UH. For 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.320 chest pain, he prescribed a similar formula, still with the 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:08.480 roses in it uh, presumably to make something more like 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:10.480 a poultice or a pace that you would apply on 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.560 the area over your heart. That same compound could be 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:16.040 applied to the abdomen for belly aches. And he also 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:18.560 said that a powder made from the yellow strings from 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.560 the middle of the rose quote drank in the distilled 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:26.120 water of quinces stays the overflowing of women's courses. He 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.200 really thought basically that red roses were full of uses, 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:31.920 and he even stated quote to write at large of 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.600 every one of these would make my book swell too big, 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:37.520 it being sufficient for a volume of itself to speak 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.000 fully of them. But just the same, he really did 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.200 talk a lot about roses, and specifically red roses, and 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:44.920 what you could do with them to improve your health 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:48.680 in his book, and the late sevente century, grafting was 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:52.200 being used as a way to manipulate roses. Was common 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:56.640 for gardeners to graft roses onto briars to sculpt blooming plants. 0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:00.640 Multiple different roses were sometimes grafted on so one roots 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:05.480 stock to create unique and visually spectacular garden features. Yeah, 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:07.639 there are some writings where you'll see them, counting the 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:10.400 many numbers of different kinds of roses that are blossoming 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:14.960 on a single uh briar. Similarly, there was not much 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.160 in the way of documentation of the work that had 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.280 been done along the Mediterranean and then throughout Europe to 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.399 cross breed and cultivate roses. It really wasn't until the 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.520 nineteenth century that records of the work that was being 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:29.159 done in greenhouses and gardens in relation to the genus 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:33.520 Rosa started to be kind of consistent. The earliest organized 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:37.639 breeding program that's fully documented began in Perth, Scotland. In 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:42.200 wild Scotch roses were brought into the Dixon and Brown 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:45.280 Nursery and one of those plants produced flowers with a 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.240 hint of red in them. From that plant, a new 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:51.560 one was bred with double flowers, and they selectively bred 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.600 from that and so on until the nursery had cultivated 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:59.120 eight different double roses. And selective breeding had most certainly 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:01.720 been done before the including in China and the Middle East. 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:03.800 And we're gonna talk a lot more about China in 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:05.600 a minute, but this marks the first time that we 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.879 know of that careful records of that process were kept 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:13.520 and survive for us to read today. And roses from 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:17.639 China really changed everything once they were introduced to Europe. 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.840 But this aspect of rose history, like so many others, 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:24.679 is not always clear. For one thing, as roses moved 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.600 along trading routes, they would sometimes be attributed not to 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.359 their place of origin, which was China, but to another 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:33.680 stop on the trade route, which was India. And as 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:37.160 corrections were attempted in this record. Sometimes that just meant 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:40.280 the same plant was described as coming from China, India 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:44.800 and Bengal, depending on whose account you read. Yeah. And 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.359 then like there would be roses that were traded maybe 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:50.760 in India, and they had started in China, but then 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:54.879 they led to different uh cultivations native to India. And 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:57.840 because a lot of people were creating similar things or 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:00.600 seeing similar plants but at different points on the curve, 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.320 there are some roses that have multiple different names. Rose 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:08.760 naming is a very tricky arena with a lot of duplicates, 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.639 and you'll see sometimes the same exact plant given to 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.800 different names, and that's part of why. But in any case, 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.159 while there were some Chinese roast species in Europe by 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:21.160 the mid eighteenth century, it wasn't until the late seventeen 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.560 hundreds that trade relations were established between Britain and China, 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:29.439 and China's horticultural expertise completely changed the Western world's knowledge 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:33.200 of the possibilities of roses. Chinese gardeners had been working 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.080 with roses for thousands of years at that point, but 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:38.520 as we said, little record of that work that was 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.879 done to breed them was preserved. While there were a 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:46.200 number of cultivated and wild roses from China introduced into Europe. 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:50.320 Four eventually arrived that caused a huge shift in the 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:54.640 genetic possibilities that were open to cultivators. These are referred 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:59.000 to as the four stud China's. This reminds me of 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.800 like the foundation sires from horse breeding that we talked 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:06.359 about in the Kentucky Derby episode. It's exactly the same idea, 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:10.199 except what's interesting is that since like we talk or 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:12.920 if you read any books about roses in their their 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:15.840 historical cultivation, they talk about the four stud China's, like, 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.800 you know, with great reverence and import but we don't 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:22.920 know exactly how those were even developed. So there's it's 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:24.960 kind of funny to me that this whole foundation is 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:28.840 built on a thing we can't quite identify. The lineage 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.280 of the first though of the four stud China's as 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.080 a pink rose called Old Blessed China. It also had 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.119 an older nickname, which was Parsons Pink China, and it 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:40.040 was described by one English writer as quote the most 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:44.080 elegant rose and also quote justly considered as one of 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:48.240 the greatest ornaments ever introduced to this country. The second 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:51.359 of the four stud China's to arrive in Europe was 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.920 called Slater's Crimson and was, as you might surmise read, 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.880 had large flowers and bloomed year round. It didn't require 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:02.400 much care, and it was described in Curtis's Botanical Magazine 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.320 has a plant which quote maybe reared almost in a 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:09.320 coffee cup, is kept with the least possible trouble, and 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:13.680 propagated without difficulty. Both it and the Parsons pink China 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:15.879 were being grown in European gardens by the end of 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:20.400 the seventeen hundreds. In the early eighteen hundreds, humes blushed 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:23.399 tea scented China joined the stud China's and it was 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:26.840 alleged as that name indicates, to have a fragrance of tea, 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:29.119 although there is a bit of debate that goes on 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:31.560 and on as to whether or not that characterization of 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:35.960 scent is accurate. That rose initially traveled to Europe via 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.560 the East India Company, and there are sums that have 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:41.280 speculated that it may have taken on the scent of 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:43.199 the teas that were imported at the same time, and 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:46.960 that that's what people were smelling and not a pleasant 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:50.200 odor produced by the bloom. The fourth of the Stud 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:52.800 China's was the Park of Yellow, which people were extremely 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:57.000 excited about because it was yellow. Yeah, there had been 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:02.000 a lot of effort to cultivate healthy yellow roses for 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:04.440 quite some time, but it was really tricky to get 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:07.760 like a really true saturated color with it. So this 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:11.200 like opened up the genetic possibilities in a huge way 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:14.320 and people were very excited about it. Uh. And next up, 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:17.160 we're going to talk about how Empress Josephine Bonaparte helped 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:19.560 the cause of roses in Europe. But before we do 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:28.000 list pause, we'll have a little sponsor break. Once the 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:31.879 four Stud China roses were incorporated into breeding programs in 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:36.639