Travelling through the thicket Part One

Botanical Magic From The Hedgerow

Rosehips, the fruit of the rose bush, beaming red, full of seeds and intolerably itchy hairs, protected by thorned talons (but incredibly satisfying to nip off the bush). Charged with antioxidants, polyphenols, vitamin E and Vitamin C (the richest source of vitamin C of any European native plant) We have been using rosehips for centuries to ward off cold and flu, reduce inflammation, and for digestive health. To give an example of their nutritional significance, During World War II, a paid government Rosehip harvest was mandated to safeguard a source of vitamin C while citrus imports were disrupted. But is there a deeper meaning and significance of the Rose in European culture? can we reconnect to a potentially lost history of encoded meaning and symbolic reverence? How deeply has the rose affected thought and action, dreams and creation?

Fig 1,2. Left: Rosa canina, the dog rose - its roots were used in treating dog bites, hence its name. Left: A display showcasing the wide variety of Rosehips (Wikipedia, 2024)

What may come first to mind is the Rose’s pretty flower, we may have given a bouquet of them, crisp red and iridescent, wrapped in crackling plastic, to our lover, or to our tinder-hinge-bumble fourth-date. Maybe it stops there, perhaps they are purely and simply a symbol of love and romantic intent…maybe this is where it ends. But scratch the soil and find that behind the crisp red elegance of her flowers is a heavy velveteen curtain that shrouds a deep and mysterious history. Used by esoteric philosophers, in mythology and mystical ceremonies, emblazoned on flags and shields of war and used to bribe gods of Secrecy, the Rose lies at the centre of an axis of power and symbolic meaning that runs hundreds of years deep, and perhaps even further.

Family Trees and Jealousies

Taxonomically, Roses are the type genus of an enormous family (Rosaceae), which contains within it everything from almond trees to peaches and plums, coffee, strawberry, blackberry, apple and indeed hawthorn. You could describe them as the mother at the centre of this fruit-filled family tree. It is no wonder then that Eros, the Greek God of love, desire and fruitfulness, is associated with the Rose. In one story it is said that the Rose’s thorns* appeared on the vines he struck with arrows when aiming for the bees that stung him when he was kissing a most beautiful rose. That's MY sweet rose nectar! Here, thorns erupt from the tension between a lover's ego and his desire to eliminate the source of his pain. Eros’ mother Aphrodite, Goddess of love and beauty is also heavily associated with the Rose, indeed rose flowers turning red only after she wounds herself on the thorns and stains them with her blood. Aphrodite uses roses to protect too, famously using the ‘immortal oil of the rose’ in the Iliad to protect the body of Hector, Prince of Troy. In another fascinating myth Eros offers the rose as a bribe to Harpocrates (the god of silence), hoping to keep secret his mother’s perpetual sexual indiscretions, and it is from this story that was birthed the use of the Latin term ‘sub rosa’ (under the rose), which links the rose to silence, secrecy, and the unknowable. Laid out in these myths we can see a wonderfully complex crossover of uses and encoded meaning, from love and desire to protection and safeguarding, and then secrecy and deceit in just a few flicks of a rosewood wand.

Fig 3. The Birth of Venus (Aphrodite’s Roman counterpart) by Sandro Botticelli. Chronos seized an opportunity, and attacked his father with a sickle crafted by Gaia. He severs Ouranus’ genitalia from his body and as his father’s testicles fall into the sea, Aphrodite (Venus)  is born. And as the sea foam around her touches the earth, bushes of white roses appear - note the pinky white roses wafting through the air. (Parenti, 2025)

The Great Mysteries

Moving away from the myth-centred Roman and Greek cultures and into the christianisation of the Roman empire, the rose then hop scotches gracefully into a relationship with the Virgin Mary (and indeed the prophet Muhammad), and is enshrined as a flower of love, purity and protection. At this time, In religious ceremonies rose oil is used to purify the space, by priests and priestesses during sacred rites to create a heady atmosphere, conducive to communion with God. Concepts of ‘the rosary’ come into sharp focus (from the Latin rosarium meaning rose garden), each prayer meant as a spiritual rose offered to the virgin Mary. But here again we see a relationship with privacy and mystery, a principal function of rosary prayer beads being a meditation on the mysteries of Joy, Sorrow, Glory and illumination. Then, perhaps the culmination of the spiritual ascension of the Rose in European culture, Branching vine-like from main stream christianity, a mystical christian sect emerges who uses the rose as its main symbological motif, placing it at the centre of the cross — these were the Rosicrucianists of the 17th Century, drawing influence from hermetic teachings, Egyptian mystery schools and the mystical ceremonies of ancient Greece such as in Delphi and Eleusis.

So, a pretty complex co-opting of different uses and symbols here, to say the least. The Rose has definitely imprinted itself on the retina of our collective imagination, it is no wonder that the Gardens of England are littered with their cultivars and hybrids, keeping gardeners at attention with their pruning shears lest they get too unruly and sprawling, talons threatening to back comb finely blow-dried hair. Now let’s turn to another plant and berry that has a similar tap root into the past and our collective consciousness.

Click HERE to read Part Two on everything Hawthorn.