Apothecary Roses
Rosa gallica, the apothecary rose, is the oldest and the best of the old garden roses, and you’ll find it in the ancestry of many of the classic rose hybrids.
This may be the only rose breed which crossed over into the medicinal category, with uses so widespread, ranging from skin care to sedative, antiseptic and anti-inflammatory applications, they were chosen to represent the apothecary guild.
They were nicknamed cabbage roses, a reference to their fully double flowers which boast a hundred petals or more. Their blooms are usually very fragrant and almost always pink, especially the magenta pink shown in the picture.
All roses are edible, of course, (did you know they’re cousins of the apple, the raspberry, the meadowsweet and the hawthorn, what a wild mix!), but some like Kazanlak and Rose de Rescht, are grown specifically for culinary uses, and they’re both descendants of the cabbage rose.
Gallicas have been broadly popularized by Pierre Joseph Redoute’s botanical prints, which often depict this variety of the queen of flowers.
Their healthy and resilient shrubs bloom abundantly, but only for one month, and their flowers are easily scattered by the wind and the rain.
Last, every rose has its thorns, but some have more than others.
These old garden aristocrats are particularly prickly, with hairy thorns that cover their canes like fur, even the underside of their leaves. You can’t get anywhere near them without getting scratched raw, in fact the rose forest that surrounded Sleeping Beauty’s castle was made of gallicas.
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