Love concept "explosion"! 99% of the roses you received on Valentine's Day are fake?

Every February 14, all the roses in the flower shops and flower markets are sold out. But in fact, what the flower shops sell are not roses, but Chinese roses! Do you feel cheated? Don't worry, let's start with what roses are.

What exactly is a rose?

In ancient times, "rose" originally referred to gemstones , which can be seen from the jade character next to it. "Rose" and "Gui" recorded in "Shuowen Jiezi" are explained as "beautiful stone" and "round and good" respectively, and together they refer to a gemstone called "Huoqi". It is quite confusing to explore what "Huoqi" is. Different ancient books have different descriptions of it. Some say it is a glass bead, "the big one is like a chicken egg, shaped like crystal, round and white", and some say it is a purple gold gemstone similar to mica produced in South India, but it is still a kind of pearl and jade.

However , at the latest in the Tang Dynasty, rose was used as the name of a flower . Wen Tingjun wrote a sentence like "rose brushes the ground red", which obviously no longer describes a gem. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the name "rose" gradually referred to a plant similar to roses and blooming red, purple or white flowers native to northern China. This is what is recorded in "Guang Qunfang Pu", "Hua Jing" and "Botanical Names and Illustrations" - it is the Chinese name "rose" in today's "Flora of China", and it is the only Rosa rugosa with the word "rose".

This plant may be very different from the "rose" in everyone's impression. When they bloom, they are smaller and flatter, far less ostentatious than the fresh cut flowers in the flower shop. The more obvious difference is the leaves. The leaves of roses have obvious wrinkles, which is also the origin of the specific epithet rugosa in its scientific name. Although some hybrid ornamental varieties with rose pedigree have been cultivated in Europe and the United States in recent decades, compared with roses, they are still rarely used in gardening, and have never been used as fresh cut flowers - so it is impossible to buy real roses in flower shops.

Rose image source: wikipedia

People grow roses mainly for eating . Their petals have a strong aroma and can be directly pickled as food or processed as seasonings. As early as in the "Guang Qun Fang Pu", it was recorded that it "can be made into tea, wine, and honey." But even in this field, roses seem to be overtaken. The rose variety used in Yunnan rose cakes is called "Da Tianban", which is a hybrid of Yunnan local roses and Turkic roses, and is not a rose.

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In general contexts, the scope of "rose" is much broader. In the narrowest sense, "rose" refers to a single species, Rosa chinensis, just like "rose". However, because roses are widely involved in the hybridization and breeding of ornamental plants of the genus Rosa, it is generally used in a broad sense, that is, all "hybrid ornamental Rosa plants". Whether it is the national standard or the flower industry standard published by the State Forestry Administration, this broad definition of rose is adopted.

What does the flower shop sell?

According to the national standard and national industry standard, all the "roses" sold in flower shops are actually Chinese roses. To be more precise, it should be "hybrid tea rose" - a variety in the huge Chinese rose family. There are a vast number of varieties under this variety. For example, most of the "red roses" in flower shops are a variety called "Corolla". Hybrid tea roses have beautiful shapes, large and tall buds, long and straight stems, and only one flower on each branch, making them very suitable for use as fresh cut flowers. And they have a variety of colors, covering almost all common flower colors except blue.

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What about the bright blue "roses" in the flower shop? That's another trap, because they are all dyed - the traditional method is to absorb the color, allowing the pigment to enter the petals along the ducts in the flower stem to dye the white roses blue, and the more fashionable method is to spray the blue paint directly on. (The same method is used for rainbow-colored roses.)

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The lineage of hybrid tea roses is very complex. They are the result of repeated hybridization and selection of hybrid evergreen rose varieties and hybrid perfume rose varieties. The former is the offspring of repeated hybridization of ancient European roses and roses, while the latter is the result of hybridization of perfume roses (Rosa odorata) from China with roses, and then hybridization with ancient European roses.

Hybrid tea roses were created around the middle of the 19th century, with the earliest variety being "La France" in 1867, or even earlier "Elise Masson," "Léonore d'Este," "Gigantique," or others. But it wasn't until the early 20th century that this line finally became popular. Today, there are thousands of hybrid tea rose varieties selected by breeders around the world—and thanks to them, florists are becoming more and more full of them.

How did roses and hybrids get confused?

You may have noticed that hybrid tea roses are called "hybrid tea roses". Since they are all called roses, aren't they still roses? In fact, the confusion may be caused by equating the English "rose" with the Chinese "玫瑰".

The study of the systematic evolution of the Rosaceae family shows that the temperate region of East Asia is an important origin and differentiation center of Rosaceae plants. Compared with Western countries, China's Rosa plants have a larger number of species and morphological differences between species. Therefore, the ancient Chinese began to subdivide Rosa plants very early. Hundreds of years ago, there were a series of special names such as rose, rose, and rose to refer to different species. However, in history, the West had no habit of distinguishing them, and the entire Rosa plant was called "rose". Even after the introduction of Eastern species, which triggered an explosion of horticultural varieties, they still simply used "garden rose" to refer to the entire hybrid ornamental population.

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Because of the difference in the scope of reference, some errors and omissions are inevitable when the two cultures communicate. In theory, the word "rose" should be translated from English into "月季", "蔷薇", "玫瑰" or one of the appropriate ones, or a new noun should be created to match the entire category of the genus Rosa, but the name of the plant is actually a very professional matter, and it is difficult to master without relevant background. At this time, the name "rose" borrowed from Meiyu naturally gained a little extra advantage, and this advantage accumulated little by little, and eventually evolved into the current one-sided situation.

Although the "language of flowers" system originated in Constantinople of the Ottoman Empire, the series of "language of flowers" that "red roses represent love, white roses represent purity" was finally formed in Britain and France - the "rose" in the language of flowers refers to the Chinese rose. Therefore, giving a Chinese rose on Valentine's Day is actually the right answer.

Planning and production

This article is a work of Science Popularization China-Starry Sky Project

Produced by: Science Popularization Department of China Association for Science and Technology

Producer: China Science and Technology Press Co., Ltd., Beijing Zhongke Xinghe Culture Media Co., Ltd.

Author: Lao Mao, a popular science writer

Review丨Wang Kang, Director of the Science Museum of the National Botanical Garden

Planning丨Fu Sijia Linlin

Editor: Fu Sijia