Guest Author - Julie L Baumler

In researching my article Roses: The Middle East Connection, I came across a number of fun and interesting articles and references related to roses and perfume that are often only tangentially related to the Middle East but might be interesting to readers of that article.

Pinkie D'Cruz's Language of Flowers - Pinkie has a long listing of meanings of different flowers and presentations in the language of flowers. She also has quite a bit of other rose and flower lore on her site.

Jackson and Perkins is my favorite source of roses for my garden. Taking part in their Rose Test Panel is one of my favorite garden memories. Click on the rose to go to their online store. (If you like this particular rose, the picture in my article Roses: The Middle Eastern Connection is linked directly to the page to purchase it.)

Two articles about perfume making in the Middle East:

• "Rosy Outlook" from The Telegraph
• Kashan Preparing for “Rose and Rosewater Festival”

A History of the Roses The history of roses, mainly focused on Greek mythology, from the International Cut Flower Association. I find their headline image to be a particularly nice piece of rose art.

Another Rose History from the Santa Barbara Rose Society, this includes much more of the rose's Middle Eastern history.


Excerpts from Susan Loy's book Flowers, The Angel's Alphabet. The excerpts include the chapter on the History of the Language of Flowers Book. This chapter includes Loy's argument that the Persian "language of flowers" was an aid to memory, not meanings. If you are interested in purchasing the book, click on the cover picture to purchase it through Alibris


Although I usually find press releases to be fairly boring, this one about Harkness's The Rose: An Illustrated History is quite interesting. If you are interested in purchasing the book, click on the cover picture to purchase it through Alibris