A Rose by Any Name

More than fifteen thousand rose species and cultivars are grown worldwide. Every one of these plants has its own distinctive name, given perhaps by the person who first picked it for a sweetheart, a botanist who dissected it long ago or a horticulturist who nurtured it. Douglas Brenner and Stephen Sanniello tackle the thorny task of digging up the history behind rose names. Their stores are filled with enough romance, tragedy, mystery and scandal to satisfy even those who would never dream of actually tending a plant. For instance, did you know the gallica rose’s perfume wafted through Pliny’s Roman villa and lulled Marie Antoinette on the night before her wedding, or that roses in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were mainly raised for medicinal purposes? With ornate vintage art and photographs, “A Rose by Any Name” unearths the roots or rose lore and reveals how people, communities and cultures across the globe and throughout the ages have identified the living things that matter to them most.