A Rose by Any Name: The Little Known Lore and Deep-Rooted History of Rose Names by Douglas Brenner and Stephen Scanniello

Open any rose catalogue or go to any garden center to find hundreds and hundreds of rose breeds and varieties, each with its own specific name. While you may "Ooh!' And "Aah!" over this variety of that, do you ever wonder why roses have so many names, and how those names came to be? Wonder no more, because this book will be your guide to hundreds of rose names, and who and what they were named for and why.

Did you know that John Wayne has two roses named for him? Or Greer Garson three? (Two after roles she played, and one for her stage name). Barbara Streisand also has a rose named for her, and so do Rosie O'Donnell, Whoopi Goldberg, and even Frank Sinatra and Victor Borge.

Roses can be popular, like American Beauty or Blaze, or flop, like "Siren". They can be named for people, products (Like the "Tupperware Pink" rose, the "Peaudouce" Rose (a diaper company) or even characters, like the "Ma Perkins, "Mirandy" or "Mrs. Minniver" Rose). They can be named for cars (The "Chrysler Imperial" Rose) or for the surprise the grower got when finding the rose (Including such names as "Happenstance" "Keepit", and "Surprise Surprise").

They can be a variety of types of roses, from climbing roses, rambling roses, floribundas, gallicas and hybrid teas. It's the hybrid teas that get most of the attention from the casual rose grower nowadays. Unfortunately, most of the ones that fill the garden centers have little to no scent. They are bred for hardiness, and for pretty flowers, but the scent is lacking. Not so with other rose types, the "old Garden roses", which can knock you off your feet if you aren't careful, with the intensity of their scent. from the tea-scented "Sweet Juliet" to the extremely sweet "Madame Knorr", you can give your garden both looks and scent.

This was a wonderful book. It has chapters, but inside those chapters, it can lead you from the starting point all over the map, from rose to rose to rose by virtue of what it was named, how it was named and so on. Each chapter is enlivened with pictures, paintings or both of some of the roses talked about in that chapter, all in gorgeous color.

Whether you're someone who grows roses, loves roses or just enjoys reading about the why of things, this book on rose names is wonderfully enlightening. While some rose varieties are dead today, gone out of existence because no one cultivates them any longer, new varieties spring up all the time- some merely renamings of other, older roses, either through a grower's ignorance or malfeasance- this book has a good explanation for the names of these roses, and ones to look up if you are interested in growing new or old roses.

This is an excellent book, filled with true stories about the names of roses, how they were used, grown and how their popularity flares and sometimes dies. Anyone who loves roses or the stories about them will love reading about them, and might even inspire you to plant some of your own. Recommended.