Bred for Beauty

As I walked through town today I saw a large bucket of red roses being transported by two women. It was obviously too heavy for one person to handle. “Those are lovely roses” I thought to myself. Then I saw more buckets on some street corners with volunteer collectors standing alongside of them. It was our local Red Cross Society doing their annual fund-raising. A nice idea… Our Red Cross Society does such good works and deserves support. For a small donation one could take home a perfect long-stemmed red rose for one’s loved one. I made a donation and became the owner of this thing of great beauty. A long stem, perfectly shaped head, velvety petals, a lovely shade of dark red…and.…the bonus…..no thorns! “Just perfect,” I thought until I sniffed at it. Alas, a thing of beauty but with no perfume at all. I conferred with a friend who was sitting with a bucket of these beauties at the supermarket. I photographed a trio of some in her bucket. We came to the conclusion that these roses are “bred for beauty” only. We agreed there is a fortune to be made by any rose breeder who can come up with all the attributes of these long stemmed beauties along with a lovely intoxicating fragrance…… Go to it rose breeders.