A Natural Perfumers Journal

Of all flowers roses possess a wider variety of perfume than any other species. The wild roses and the old shrub roses, possess a more distinctive perfume. Rose oil, or attar of roses is a costly commodity, taking 1 ton of petals to produce 11oz of oil and for this reason much is synthetically produced. Some 96 per cent of women's perfumes contain rose oil. Rosa alba is the white rose that was adapted by the House of York and has a very sweet smell. The double form is the symbol [the British] Royal Family. Rosa alba maxima is the Jacobite Rose . The Red Rose of Lancaster Rosa gallica officinalis has recently been planted along with Rosa alba for perhaps the first time since the Wars of the Roses in 1460, during London Garden Squares Day in London's Temple Gardens in an attempt to recreate a piece of history. The red and white varieties were famously plucked in the gardens by York and Lancastrian adversaries at the start of the wars but the bushes had died out. But