RHS The Rose: The history of the world's favourite flower in 40 roses

If you are interested in understanding the background of you garden roses for once sort out some of the confusion between facts And myths, this book is a great opportunity. And it is so well written, too. It reads like a good story, which it definitely is.

This is a beautifully illustrated and fascinating book. The history and provenance of Roses is quite complicated but it is easily understood as it is told here.

Stunning botanical images and beautifully written stories about roses. Couldn’t get better than this

Bought this as a christmas present for elderly neighbour's. They have absolutely loved looking at it over the last few months.

Bought as a present for a rose lover seems to give a good range for the learner to the expert

the history of the world's roses will me in my job and college work.

I bought this book with no knowledge about roses. After 80 pages of taxonomical torture, I almost gave up. Every rose introduced starts the same way, giving a tediously long winded, distracting example of historical nomenclatural confusion between nurserymen, breeders and historians. The dodgy coloured old illustrations provide little assistance and forced me to Google every rose he was attempting, but failing spectacularly to explain. I found it a thoroughly miserable process knowing that what you are reading is about to be gleefully pulled apart, with no guarantees that by the end of the chapter you will be any wiser about the true origins qualities and appearances of the rose in question. Things pick up as you get into recent centuries, but just when you think you've dragged yourself out of hedge, the author hits you with an introduction Into rosa wichurana which elaborates at tedious length over the failings of the international Commission on Botanical Nomenclature to rule on whether it should be spelled "wichuraiana" or not. Just tell me what it is! At times the suspense was physically painful. This book is not for novices. It's for people who are already very well aquainted and familiar with rose varieties. Apparently roses are associated with Confucius, Buddha, Vishnu, Brahma and Muhammad but you won't get a word on that in this book. The author felt it much better instead to devote half the book lamenting over inacurate anglocentric historical nomenclature and misleading descriptions from the past. Who cares? A good hard prune is needed I think. Far better is Joan Morgans book of Pears for a truly enjoyable and informative walk through history. This just leaves a bitter taste.