In honor of June’s Birthday Blossom, I have been busy perusing books about roses. One of my new finds is the aptly titled Roses. The photographs are by Fabio Petroni and the text by Natalia Fedeli. Clearly meant to be a coffee table book, Roses is actually both visually stunning and a fascinating read.
The fruits of this crossbreeding are stunning. If you think that pictures of roses would be boring I can assure you that these are not. The variety of style, the rainbow of hues, and the juxtaposition of each color-saturated rose with the stark white background are arresting. These are artistic photos of some of the most beautiful roses I have ever seen, decidedly not your-run-of-the-mill, Valentine’s Day roses. The most interesting thing about them, after their amazing beauty of course, is the nomenclature. 
Pearl Avalanche, Red Paris, and Fragrant Delicious are a few my favorites. For some of the roses the meaning behind the name is obvious. Green Tea is the color of green tea and Butterscotch is suggestive of the hard candy. Other names require a bit of explanation. Cezanne is so named because its color tones resemble those of the artist Paul Cezanne’s nature paintings. Isis was inspired by the ancient Egyptian goddess of fertility, marriage, and magic. Its Dutch hybridizer selected the name to reflect both the intense beauty of the rose and its long duration in water (beyond 20 days), characteristics that reminded him of traits often attributed to the goddess. The book contains photos and descriptions of what are known as florist roses. This technical term refers to roses that are a crossbreed of a hybrid perpetual and a tea rose. They are essentially new varieties that were created by crossing two different flowers.
The book also contains technical details about each rose. Facts such as the size of the corolla’s opening and the length of the stem ensure that all flower lovers, even the horticultural geek in your life, will find something to love about this book.
One note about the book. Both the photographer and the writer of the text are Italian. The translator is clearly not a native speaker of American English. While this naturally led to grammatical and usage errors, it also led to some very quirky yet interesting sentences. This might annoy some readers, but after a few minutes I found it charming and somehow endearing. This book would make the perfect gift for the rose lover in your life - or your cat.