Rose warriors in India and China wage a thorny battle

Rose warriors are a hardy breed. Like bees and insects intoxicated by the scent, form and texture of that most perfect of flowers, they plunder the secret chambers of the rose and create new varieties. They are also hunter-gatherers in the most primitive sense. They tramp through the remote jungles and mountain valleys of Asia in search of rare species.

Dr Wang Guoling is a Chinese rose warrior. He is a scholar and researcher who specialises in collecting ancient records of the Chinese art of rose cultivation. “Anything labelled a dragon has to be a climber,” he tells people who might label a miniature rose bush a Chinese dragon rose.

His quarrel is with European rose enthusiasts who emphasise on the four varieties of Chinese roses that revolutionised rose growing in Europe in the early 19th century. These became famous as the “Four China Studs”, the grandparents, as it were, of all the flowering varieties of roses that became the rage when the Chinese strains became acclimatised to the colder gardens of France and Italy.

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