User:Doctorateandgardenerguy/sandbox

Roses suck. I have gardened them before and they are neither pleasant to work with, nor truly wonderful smelling, nor do they taste outstanding. This is a page dedicated to the dissemination of factual evidence for why roses are not good flowers.

Thorns

Roses Have Thorns

Roses have a great quantity of thorns. In 2007, a group of botanical researchers determined the average rose has 3.1 thorns per square inch of its stem. Some roses also had thorns on the petals. Some estimate that the quantity of thorns on a single rose stem is so great, the pain of grabbing one open-handed is at least equivalent to the pain associated with childbirth. The quality of thorns is also a factor in the amount of damage they are able to cause to human flesh. The same 2007 study also found that over 97% of an individual rose's thorns are typically very sharp. Lightly touching the stem of a rose will result in no permanent bodily harm, but an open-handed approach and firm grasp could result in horrific injuries requiring medical intervention up to amputation of affected digits. This was the case of a 47-year old gardener who lost a thumb to a rose and briefly appeared in news headlines during the year 1869.

In some tribal cultures and ancient religions, archaeological evidence suggests rose thorns might have obtained a position of worship as malevolent spiritual forces, or at least a highly-regarded way of dispatching one's enemies. Rose thorns have been found encircling burial sites of royalty and jabbed into mid-level political dissidents.

Ouch. This is not even a very thorny one.

Olfactory Properties

Abhor-able Irritants

Roses get their characteristic scent from the compounds and molecules they emit. Primarily, these consist of high quantities of large granules of pollen, pheromones, and small clusters of microscopic thorns.