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York and Lancaster Rose (Rosa Damascena)

Rosa Damascena.

WHY, it may be asked, is this old favourite of the English garden presented as a rose of Damascus? The reason is that the true York and Lancaster rose is a variety of Rosa Damascena; and if in this little work we recognise Latin names at all, we must be as nearly correct as possible. There are several distinct roses known as representing the two great families and the healing of their feuds, one of the best known being a variety of Rosa Gallica. But the "proper" symbolic flower is a striped damask rose, with green branches and pubescent leaves, and the habit of the old monthly roses.

As Shakespeare tells the tale it makes a profound impression. We see the foundations of the feud laid in the success of Bolingbroke and the cruel murder of the king as the curtain falls on the fine historical tragedy of "Richard II." We see it ripen in the first part of "King Henry VI." in the famous scene in the Temple