Resolutions for Roses

According to legend, when Aphrodite emerged from the foaming sea, the earth was so eager to compete with the spectacle that it promptly produced the first rose. The flower has been much in evidence ever since: Mark Antony's death request was that Cleopatra cover his tomb with roses, and William Penn brought 18 roses to America from London.* The American Beauty is the flower of the District of Columbia, Georgia has the white Cherokee rose, Iowa the wild rose, and New York an unspecified variety of rose. But the indigenous goldenrod, despite its exaggerated reputation for producing hay fever, has been the popular candidate for U.S. national flower.

Last week Maine's Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith and Ohio's Republican Representative Frances Bolton introduced resolutions asking that the rose be made the national flower. Said the resolutions: "The rose has long been the favorite flower of the American people, who prefer it by a margin of 18 to 1 over any other." It added that the rose has become an "international symbol of peace"--the Peace rose gardens in such places as Jacksonville and Abilene apparently having dimmed the memory of the Wars of the Roses. Mused Mrs. Bolton: "Perhaps the President would issue his proclamation in the Rose Garden at the White House." Added Mrs. Smith: "The very famous Rose Garden in which he frequently appears." Thrilled Mrs. Bolton: "Wouldn't it be lovely if he did?"

* He also had a recipe: "To comfort ye brains, and for ye palsie, and for ye giddiness of the head. Take a handful of rose flowers, cloves, mace, nutmeg, all in a powder, quilt in a little bag and sprinkle with rose water, mixed with malmsey wine, and lay it in ye nod of ye neck."

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