What was a green rose? A real rose or
some island plant or Polynesian cultivar? Why in English?
Hawaiian songs are rife with flower symbolism and layers
of meaning, the surface one innocuous, the hidden one less
so. If a rose is a rose, what does it signify?
It is a rose, but no ordinary one. The green rose - Rosa
chinensis viridiflora - is a sport, a stable mutant of a
hybrid China rose: 'Old Blush,' 'Parsons' Pink' or 'Slater's
Crimson,' depending on your source. It's a kind of floral
monster: Where the petals and stamens and pistil should
be, there's only a cluster of green leaflike structures.
Instead of a conventional rose fragrance, it has a peppery
smell. It's not hardy, more a tropical plant.
Of course, since the reproductive parts are missing, the
green rose is sterile - an evolutionary dead end, except
that it seduces humans, who propagate it from cuttings.
Some gardeners have claimed that their green roses reverted
to a pink-flowered parent form.
Viridiflora may have been in cultivation since 1743. It's
said to have turned up in Charleston, S.C., by 1833, and
to have been introduced to the horticultural trade by a
British firm, Bembridge (or Bambridge) and Harrison, in
1855 or 1856.
I t's not to everyone's taste. Elisabeth Ginsburg wrote
a few years back in the New York Times: "I love just
about all roses, with the possible exception of Rosa viridiflora,
a horticultural oddity with blossoms that look like pale
green spiders." East Bay rosarian Carolyn Parker tells
us: "I'm not really attracted to that rose."
But the green rose has its fans. And it's a forgiving plant.
It's not cold-hardy, and is said to die back to the ground
in zones 5 and 6. However, it's disease-resistant, shade-tolerant
and does well in poor soils. A British site recommends growing
it in pots.
Ours has stayed in its liner since we bought it at last
year's San Francisco Aloha Festival in the Presidio. There
it was, surrounded by ti and taro, ginger and breadfruit.
The vendor couldn't say much about its role in Hawaiian
culture but was confident that we could keep it alive. It
spent the winter on the front porch and is now growing back
the leaves it dropped during the last cold spell. It bloomed,
if that's the word, last fall. The little green pseudoflowers
had some white streaks, which aged to blurs with a tinge
of reddish-purple.
The strange condition of the green rose is known as phyllody,
a term coined by plant pathologist Maxwell Masters in 1869.
The phenomenon had been described by Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe - yes, the "Faust" guy - as early as 1790.
Phyllody occurs in some plants when hormone production is
disrupted by hot weather, insect damage, water stress or
viral or phytoplasmal disease. Floribunda roses, descendants
of R. chinensis, seem particularly prone to it.
Naturally, scientists in search of the master genes that
control plant development have examined this odd rose. You
may have heard about the Hox genes in animals that determine,
broadly speaking, what goes where in the body plan of a
fruit fly, a mouse or a presidential candidate. A fly with
a Hox mutation can wind up with an antenna in place of a
leg. Plants, it seems, have something similar: three classes
of genes that govern the development of the parts of a flower.
Tweak one or more of those genes and voila: the green rose.
As for what the green rose is doing in that hula, we finally
thought to ask Kem Loong, proprietor of the Templebar in
Berkeley, ukulele instructor and leader of the Royal Hawaiian
Serenaders - Uncle Kem to ohana and tiki-bar fans alike.
"I have seen the green rose on my island of Kaua'i,"
he writes. "It's green but turns brown when it is dried.
So dancers and others like to use the flower to make everlasting
leis for the head and also hat bands. I've seen it grown
in people's yards."
Those lines quoted at the start of the column translate:
"This is the end of my song/ For you, beloved green
rose." One source says it was written by Laida Paia,
a member of composer John Almeida's trio; others attribute
it to Almeida himself.
Loong continues: "We have another book that said the
song was written by John Almeida, who wrote songs for the
women he loved. It goes on to say that the rose's plain
features and its spicy, peppery scent may indicate something
about the woman who inspired his poetry in the lyrics of
the song. And also that John Almeida was blind so this might
have strengthened his imagery.
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