Fascinating facts about your favorite roses

There are roughly 100 different species of roses in the Rosa genus and Rosacea family. These woody perennial shrubs come in various parts of the globe, from Asia all the way to Europe, North America, and Africa. 

According to fossil evidence found in Colorado, the rose is 35 million years old. However, its garden cultivation started only some 5,000 years ago, around the 18th century, in China and Europe, which experts say gave birth to the modern roses we see today. 

George Washington, the first U.S. President, was also the first ever rose breeder in the country. As a matter of fact, he was so in love with roses that he named a variety in honor of his mother, Mary Washington. Nowadays, 60 percent of the roses grown in America are from California. 

Rose colors have meaning

As with all types of flowers, each shade comes with a special meaning.

The largest rose bloom ever grown was a pink rose roughly 33 inches in diameter, bred by Nikita K. Rulhoksoffski from San Onofre, California.

The world’s largest rosebush, on the other hand, a white Rosa banksiae, can be found in Tombstone, Arizona. It boasts of over 200,000 roses and branches that spread out about six feet thick. 

Editor's note: This blog post originally appeared on orchidrepublic.com. For more fun facts about roses, see the original post here.