Most when they see a rose bend down to sniff.  If you’re like me, you probably never really thought much about rose fragrance except if it’s missing, faint, or how nice it is.  Just what gives a rose its wonderful fragrance, and how this is used, is complex and fascinating.

Roses have been around and are documented longer than most of our garden plants.  The earliest record of them seems to be rose leaves found in the Colorado Rockies, dating back 35 to 32 million years to the Paleolithic era.  First mention of them, and their appearance in artistic motifs, was in Asia about 3000BC, with mention elsewhere about 2300 BC.

The fragrance of roses was valued by the Romans, used to scent rooms and after bathing.  Cleopatra supposedly filled a room over a foot deep with rose petals while wooing Marc Anthony.  The two main roses used in this era were the Damask and Gallica types.

Rose oil, often seen as “attar of roses” or “rose otto”, was probably first made in 10th century Persia.  This was the first import of roses to Europe, leading to the subsequent growing of the plants there.

Prior to the Victorian era of the late 1800’s, fragrance in flowers was used for functions such as medicinally or to hide odors.  This period saw the use of flowers in gardens and homes merely for their pleasing fragrance.

This era also saw the first attempts to define and classify scents.  Yet, it wasn’t until later in the last century that the seven main rose scents were accepted, and the responsible chemicals identified.

The seven main rose scents are rose (or damask), nasturtium, orris (which is similar to violets), violets, apple, clove, and lemon (the fruit, not the blossoms).  Orris is a compound used to fix or preserve odors.

Then there are 26 other less common odors you may smell in roses.  These include such diverse ones as honeysuckle, moss, hyacinth, honey, wine, marigold, peppers, parsley, and fruits such as raspberry.

Scent in roses, depending on which one, comes from one or more of over 300 chemical compounds.  Yet in rose oil, only four make up less than one percent but produce over 90 percent of the fragrance.

If you think rose scent is getting complicated, consider how we smell.  These chemicals evaporate and our nose receptors pick up the volatile compounds.  Each of these evaporate at a different rate, which means that rose fragrance will change over time.  For example, clove evaporates 36 times more slowly than citrus, so once you pick up a citrus scent it can disappear with the clove scent appearing later.