A Picture of Yellow Roses

The roses in the Toby jug

Gave up the ghost last night. High time.

Their yellow corsets were ready to split.

You snored, and I heard the petals unlatch,

Tapping and tickling like nervous fingers…

Sylvia Plath, Leaving Early

Nearly all the forebears of modern yellow roses are species native to Asia and the Middle East. And if you take a typical yellow rose, you can trace its ancestry back to just two of these yellow forebears. When Redouté was painting his pictures of roses for Les Roses, he painted R. foetida, the first of these significant two. This rose, believed to have originated in Iran, is famous for its bright yellow blooms and infamous for its black-spot vulnerability, a characteristic it passed on to its descendants. The second yellow rose, Redouté pictured in Choix. Known as ‘Park’s Yellow Tea-Scented China’, it brought a pale yellow colour and the beginnings of the classic modern rose shape, a shape that was further developed in the later Tea and Hybrid Tea Roses. Although this rose was mistaken as a species rose by the European botanists, it was in fact the result of eons of hybridising efforts by Chinese rose breeders.

Yellow roses are often used for a splash of sunshine in the garden. Rose breeders of the past focused their efforts to create highly saturated, pure golden yellow roses, as there were not many in existence. Now we have a huge range to choose from, from the brightest egg yolk yellows to the palest tints of creams. And the two roses that started it all, R. foetida and ‘Park’s Yellow’ are still available from specialist nurseries, although it is doubtful whether the ‘Park’s Yellow’ sold as such is in fact the original.

Meaning of Yellow Roses

Although the colour yellow is often associated with bright joyful moods and happiness, this was not always the case. From the Middle Ages to Victorian times, peoples of Europe considered the colour yellow to be a symbol of the unpleasantness of life. According to the ‘language of flowers’, bitterness, envy and treachery were all qualities that could be read into the exchange of yellow roses. In a romantic context, a bouquet of yellow roses sent after a first meeting was an omen that the giver wasn’t looking for a lasting attachment.

With time these meanings have mellowed and yellow roses in the 21st century have more optimistic sentiments. They are most commonly given to celebrate a friendship, or as a way of saying ‘thank you’ or ‘congratulations’.

Click on each yellow rose picture (at left) to find out more about the rose.