Many things to many people, the rose is a constant source of delight, inspiration…and profit. Over the years, it has caught the imagination of the world and become an enduring symbol with its own legion of literary admirers, writes Sherna Gandhy.

A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, said Gertrude Stein cynically. She’s probably in a minority of one. Through the ages and in many cultures, the rose has been not just a rose, but also a symbol. Of romance, of mystery, beauty, sweetness, purity. So, what’s with this species of flora that it has inspired such extreme emotions, generally of the positive and loving kind?

Go to the index of any book of quotations and you will find more references to ‘rose’ than to any other single word, except, perhaps, ‘love’, of which the rose is, of course, an emblem. Its physical construction has only added to its value as a symbol. The beautifully arranged, closely furled petals look like they are guarding a secret at the heart. “A lovely being scarcely formed or moulded/A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet unfolded” as the dashing Lord Byron once contended.

So popular is the flower that various cultures have laid claim to begetting it. It was apparently planted in the gardens of the Greeks, Romans, Babylonians and Chinese. The Persians claim the first rose flourished in the beautiful province of Gulistan. The Greeks claim the rose was a nymph roused from sleep by Apollo (since their lecherous gods were always after some nymph or other, we need not pay too much heed to that). The Arabs believed that the rose sprang from a drop of sweat that fell from the brow of the Prophet. According to Christian tradition, the rose flourished in the Garden of Eden, but the thorns came later – after man’s fall, of course.

Somewhere along the way, the rose got co-opted into the language of love and became the favoured mode of expressing it, giving that fat little Greek boy, Cupid, a run for his money. The association may have started with the 13th century French epic Roman de la Rose (Romance of the Rose).

Others attribute its popularity to its scent, which in some varieties (like our Indian ‘gaoti’) is very strong. The famous English rosarian, Graham Stuart Thomas, says in his book, The Graham Stuart Rose Book: “I have no doubt, myself, that it owes its perennial popularity to its scent; it was for this priceless quality that it was originally cultivated.”