Rose

The rose is a flowering plant with thorny stems and round, layered blooms. Roses grow on shrubs and climbing vines in the genus Rosa. There are about 300 wild species and thousands more types created by gardeners. Wild roses grow naturally across Europe, Asia, North America, and parts of Africa. People have grown roses on purpose for at least 5,000 years.

A rose flower has many petals arranged in a spiral. Wild roses usually have just five petals, but garden roses can have more than 100. The petals surround a center full of tiny yellow parts that make pollen. Bees and other insects visit the flower, pick up pollen, and carry it from rose to rose. After the petals fall off, a small red or orange fruit called a rose hip grows in their place. Birds eat the hips and spread the seeds inside.

Most roses have sharp points along their stems. People often call these thorns, but botanists call them prickles. Prickles grow out of the skin of the stem, while true thorns grow from deep inside the wood. The prickles help protect the plant from animals that want to eat its leaves.

Roses come in almost every color except true blue. Scientists have tried for years to breed a blue rose, but the rose plant cannot make the chemical needed for blue petals. In 2004, a Japanese company finally created a pale blue-violet rose by adding a gene from a pansy. Many gardeners still say it does not count as a real blue.

Roses are useful as well as beautiful. Rose petals are pressed to make rose oil, one of the most expensive scents in the world. It takes about 60,000 roses to make a single ounce. Rose hips are full of vitamin C, and people use them in jam, tea, and syrup. During World War II, when oranges were hard to get in Britain, the government had volunteers gather wild rose hips by the ton to make children's vitamin syrup.

The rose has shown up in human stories for thousands of years. Ancient Greeks linked it to the goddess of love. In England, two royal families fought a long war in the 1400s called the Wars of the Roses, named for the white and red roses on their badges. Today the rose is the national flower of the United States, England, and several other countries. Giving someone a red rose is still one of the best-known ways to say "I love you."