Suntory's Blue Roses

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed)
Feb 6th 2008 at 12:02PM

Not this Valentine's Day, but next Valentine's Day, some lucky ladies will be getting not red but blue roses from loved ones looking to show their affection. 14 years in the making, Suntory Ltd. is already growing test batches of the new blooms here in the States and is anticipating big sales and premium prices when they launch them next year in Japan.

Blue roses are such a rare commodity because no blue pigment naturally exists in roses, which means serious genetic modification had to happen even to get this pretty shade of purple. But what I don't get is why do they insist on calling a purple rose blue? It strikes me as an impure form of blue (there's obviously still red in the mix) and it just begs for somebody else to come up with a slightly "bluer" color and call it better. Either way, they are really beautiful -- and no word yet on what this new blue rose will be called.

Tags: blue, rose, roses, Valentines Day, ValentinesDay

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Richard Feb 6th 2008 2:05PM

But... but... they aren't even blue. This makes my brain hurt. Why not call them what they are and label them purple roses?

Bertram A. Workum Feb 6th 2008 3:47PM

They are beautiful, but their color isn't truly "purple" -- purple and violet are deep, rich colors. These are a shade of lavender -- a lighter, more pastel branch of the purple "family." What galls me about the hoo-ha-ha is that lavender roses -- not pale watery colored, but truly deep lavender, with a wonderful spicey scent-- have been around easily for more than a quarter century. I know -- they were my mother's favorite rose, because all purples were her favorite color. For her 75th birthday in December 1985, my brother and I gave her 15 lavender roses -- one for every five years (there was no way we could afford 75 long-stem roses). I walked into her home after they had been delivered; the roses had begun to open and were majestic and glorious, while the apartment was redolent with this wonderful, lovely spice scent.