Roses are way older than people. Fossil roses found in places like Colorado, Oregon and Germany have been dated to at least 35 million years ago. So the same flower that romantic poets get all soppy about today was already blooming before woolly mammoths or sabre-toothed cats existed.
There are around 150 wild rose species, and gardeners have bred those into more than 10,000 cultivated varieties. They come in nearly every colour now - though true blue roses still don’t exist naturally. The “blue” ones you see in shops are white roses dyed in coloured water.
Roses also belong to a giant plant family that includes apples, pears, plums, peaches, strawberries, raspberries and almonds. Next time you eat an apple, you’re technically munching on a fruit from a rose’s cousin. Roses themselves grow fruits too, called rose hips - they’re stuffed with vitamin C.
