Herb cabinet
Rose
Rosa gallica. A symbolic and practical entry, not a medical monograph.
The old apothecary rose is a suckering shrub with pinnate leaves, thorny stems, and fragrant flowers of clear pink to deep rose, each with a crowd of petals around a yellow center. Hips follow if the flowers are left. Modern hybrid teas may look nothing like this and are often bred for the vase, not the kitchen. This description is not a sufficient identification key.
Names
| Common name | Rose |
| Botanical name | Rosa gallica |
| Family | Rosaceae |
| Also called | apothecary rose, red rose of the old herbals |
| Uncertainty | High among the hundreds of species and cultivars. Culpeper distinguished damask roses from red roses. A florist bouquet is a chemical unknown, not a culinary flower. |
| Habitat and source | Rosa gallica is an old European garden rose, still grown in herb beds and cottage borders with sun and air around the leaves. Wild roses of other species hold hedgerows; do not assume every hedgerow rose is this one. |
Symbolic correspondences
| Tag | Attribution |
|---|---|
| Element | Water |
| Planet | Venus |
| Themes | unsprayed or not at all · affection freely given · a bowl, not a bind · thorns included |
Folklore and history
Culpeper's catalogue gives damask roses to Venus and red roses to Jupiter. This page keeps Venus for the rose of affection and says so, while refusing to flatten his distinction into one heavenly rubber stamp. Roses fill medieval garden accounts, poetry, and the later European motif of sub rosa, a confidence kept under the rose. Grieve compiles a long apothecary life for petals, hips, and waters. Those recipes are history. Scented water in a bowl is not a skin prescription.
The legend that a rose compels love is a pretty form of coercion, and this library will not teach it. Love worth the name can be refused. Queer love counts here without needing a special rose. What the flower can honestly do is mark affection that is already mutual, or beauty you offer with no invoice. Florist roses are commonly sprayed; they do not belong in food, tea, or bathwater. If you cannot look a gardener in the eye and ask what touched the petals, do not eat them and do not soak your skin in them.
Safety
Ritual applications
- Unsprayed petals floating in a bowl as something to look at
- A spoken thanks for affection that was freely given
- A refusal to cast love as a spell on an unwilling person
An original working
Unsprayed, or Not at All
To honor affection that is chosen on both sides, including queer love, without trying to bind anyone.
Timing: When a real rose is in bloom, or whenever you are willing to do the rite with an empty bowl rather than a sprayed one.
- Material: A few petals from an unsprayed rose you can vouch for, or no flower at all
- Material: A bowl of clean water
- Material: A cloth
- Material: Paper and a pen
- Material: A windowsill
- 1If you cannot swear the rose was not sprayed, leave the petals off. An empty bowl is a valid tool.
- 2Float the safe petals, if you have them, in the water. Do not add oil, and do not plan to drink the water.
- 3Write the name of a love, a friendship, or a self-regard that is mutual. If it is not mutual, write a blessing that lets the person go instead.
- 4Read the words. Check that nothing in them demands a text back, a kiss, or a change of heart.
- 5Set the bowl on the sill for an hour. Then pour the water on garden soil, not on a pet and not into food.
- 6Compost only unsprayed petals. Throw sprayed flowers in the trash without touching them to your mouth.
Affection that is free may sit with me. I will not perfume a person into staying. Unsprayed, or not at all: that is the whole rule.
Close. Pour the bowl out on soil. Compost clean petals or trash anything from a shop bouquet. Wash the bowl. Do not save the water as a cosmetic.
A practical action. Tell the person one true kind sentence, if the care is mutual and welcome, or write that sentence to yourself and then do one practical kindness you do not have to post.
Substitutions
- An empty bowl and a red thread, if every rose you can find is a florist rose
- Lilac cut for scent and not for eating, in season, if you want a Venus flower that this page also refuses as food
Growing and sourcing
Grow a rose you intend to smell or cook only if you will keep pesticides off it, and choose a variety that fits your climate and has room for air. Florist habits of heavy spraying do not belong on a bush whose petals might touch a mouth.
Beginner questions
- Can I use bouquet roses from a shop in tea or a bath? No. Assume they were sprayed, and keep them out of food, drink, and the tub.
- Did Culpeper give every rose to Venus? No. He gave damask roses to Venus and red roses to Jupiter. This page uses Venus for the affection-rose and admits the difference.
- Will a rose spell make someone love me? No. This library does not teach coercion, floral or otherwise.