100% Natural and Steam Distilled Rosa Damascena Oil
About Rose Oil
"God gave to the rose the luster of the most sparkling metal and the scent of the sweetest of perfumes. The rose offers the brilliant colors of the rainbow and sends the most learned into confusion; because they cannot say if a cup filled with crimson-colored wine and wreathed with roses gives them its splendor or receives it from them. "
Surely nothing has a history as complicated as roses, for under the single genus Rosa, there are many species scattered throughout the world.
The rose appeared on the Earth long before human beings, at least 12 million years ago-20 million, according to some-although the fossils discovered were not, strictly speaking, roses. What is certain is that the genus lived naturally throughout the entire Northern Hemisphere, and botanists estimate from 100 to 200 species of roses grew in the temperate and tropical regions of Europe, North America, North Africa, and Asia.
The voyages of explorers and the work of botanists have further helped to distribute these different species of Rosa from one end of the Earth to the other. They have been carefully studied, artistically rendered, passionately cultivated, and moreover, crossed with one another in order to bring out those qualities which were most appreciated by enthusiasts of each era, generation after generation. There are so many species names-according to origin, hybridization, or the regions most famous for their growth-that even the most highly skilled specialists have difficulty establishing an absolute classification.
Large-flowered rose bushes produce the most majestic roses, with a diameter of 3 to 5 inches (9 to 13 cm), which are usually the most fragrant. These bushes, which reach from 24 inches to 60 inches (60 to 150 cm), are described as either Hybrid Teas, when the stems bear a single flower, or Grandiflora, when there are many, up to five or six. These are the roses that include in their ancestry the famous tea-scented roses brought from China in the 19th century.
The clustered-flower rose bushes join from five to six, and sometimes up to a dozen, smaller roses, of about 1.5 to 3.5 inches (4 to 9 cm) in diameter, grouped in inflorescences. These flowers can have many petals or only five around a heart of stamen, as in simple eglantines (i.e., wild roses or dog-roses).
The inflorescences form clusters of flowers that cover the shrubs during the summer. Unfortunately for lovers of fragrant roses, none of these really gives off a remarkable scent. This group includes those roses once distinguished as Floribundas and Polyanthas, the latter presenting the thickest inflorescences of slightly smaller flowers.
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