Roses are susceptible to numerous diseases, most caused by fungi. The rose family contains about 3,000 species and accounts for 45% of the species in the rose order (Rosales).
Other popular garden plants and ornamentals in the rose family include spirea, cinquefoil, hawthorn, mountain ash, and flowering cherry. The fam¬ ily also contains many important fruits, including the apple, peach, straw¬ berry, PEAR, PLUM, APRICOT, ALMOND, QUINCE, BLACKBERRY, and RASPBERRY. Plants of some species contain dangerous cyanide compounds. Many members have thorns or prickles.
Rose, Fred (b. Aug. 24, 1897, Evansville, Ind., U.S.—d. Dec. 1, 1954, Nashville, Tenn.) U.S. singer and songwriter, a pioneer of country music. He grew up in St. Louis, and he performed at Chicago nightclubs as a teenager. He wrote and recorded popular music in the 1920s, including “Honest and Truly.” As country music emerged. Rose became one of its foremost songwriters. He had his own Nashville radio show and later wrote songs for Gene Autry’s films. Many of his songs have become clas¬ sics, including “Tears on My Pillow” (1941) and “A Mansion on the Hill” (1948), cowritten with Hank Williams, whose career he helped foster. In 1942 he and Roy Acuff cofounded the Acuff-Rose Publishing Co. Rose was one of the first three musicians elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Rose, Pete(r Edward) (b. April 14, 1941, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.) U.S. baseball player. Rose began playing organized baseball at age eight. He played for the Cincinnati Reds (1963-78, 1984-86), the Philadelphia Phillies (1979-83), and the Montreal Expos (1984). His 4,256 career hits and 3,562 games played both remain all-time records, and his career mark for runs (2,165) is exceeded only by Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Hank Aaron. In 1989, after being investigated for allegedly betting on baseball games, including those of his own Reds, Rose was banned from the sport for life by the commissioner of baseball.
Rose Bowl formally Pasadena Tournament of Roses Oldest U.S. postseason college gridiron football contest. It is held annually in Pasadena, Calif., usually on New Year’s Day. Each Rose Bowl game is preceded by a “Rose Parade” featuring floats of elaborate floral design. The first festival was held in 1890 and the first football game in 1902. The Rose Bowl stadium opened in 1922. From 1947 to 2001 participa¬ tion was limited to teams from the Big Ten and Pacific Ten conferences. Starting in 2002, this arrangement was suspended every fourth year to allow the Rose Bowl to host a national championship game.
Rose of Lima, Saint orig. Isabel de Flores (b. April 20/30, 1586, Lima, Viceroyalty of Peru—d. Aug. 24, 1617, Lima; canonized April 12, 1671; feast day August 23, formerly August 30) Patron saint of Peru and all of South America, the first person born in the Western Hemisphere to be canonized by the Roman Catholic church. Bom to a wealthy family, she joined a Dominican order in 1606, overcoming her mother’s objec¬ tions. She went into seclusion in a hut in the family garden, where she lived with great austerity, fasting, wearing a crown of thorns, and sleep¬ ing on a bed of broken glass. She experienced many visions, particularly of the Devil. Only in her last three years did she leave her seclusion. Many miracles were reported after her death.
rose of Sharon Shrub or small tree {Hibiscus syriacus, or Althaea syr- iaca ) in the mallow family, native to eastern Asia but widely planted as an ornamental for its showy flowers. It can grow to 10 ft (3 m) and gener¬ ally assumes a low-branching pyramid shape. The mallowlike flowers range from white and pinkish-lavender to purple, generally with a crim¬ son base; some varieties have double flowers. The name also sometimes refers to the unrelated Aaron’s-beard {Hypericum calycinum ), a shrubby relative of St.-John's-wort.
rose quartz Translucent, coarse-grained variety of the silica mineral quartz found in pegmatites. Rose quartz is valued for its pale to rich pink colour, which is due to very small amounts of titanium. It has been carved since early times and has been faceted to provide gems of good brilliance. Its milky aspect is attributed to tiny, needlelike inclusions of rutile, which, when oriented, give the polished stone an asterism (optical phenomenon of a star-shaped figure) like that found in sapphire, but not as sharp or intense. Rose quartz occurs in Brazil, Madagascar, Sweden, Namibia, California, and Maine, among other sites.
rose window In Gothic architecture, a decorated circular window, often glazed with stained glass, that first appeared in mid-12th-century cathedrals. It was used mainly at the western end of the nave and the ends of the transept. The bar tracery of a High Gothic rose window consisted of a series of radiating forms, each tipped by a pointed arch at the out¬ side of the circle. The rose windows of Notre-Dame de Paris are particu-
Prairie rose (Rosa setigera).
JOHN H. GERARD
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Roseau ► Rosicrucian I 1643
larly noteworthy. In later Flamboyant-style tracery, the radiating elements consisted of an intricate network of wavy, double-curved bars.
Roseau \ro-'zo\ Town (pop., 1991:15,853), capital of Dominica, an island nation of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Roseau lies on the island’s southwestern coast, at the mouth of the Roseau River. Its port exports limes, tropical vegetables, and spices. There are botanical gardens, nearby waterfalls, and thermal springs. The town was burned by the French in 1805 and suffered nearly total destruction by a hurricane in
Rosebery Vroz-bo-reV Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th earl of orig. Archibald Philip Primrose (b. May 7, 1847, London, Eng.—d. May 21, 1929, Epsom, Surrey) British politician. He served in William E. Gladstone’s governments as undersecretary for Scottish affairs (1881-83) and foreign secretary (1886, 1892-94). He succeeded Gladstone as prime minister (1894-95) but was ineffective in resolving conflicts within the Liberal Party and in passing legislation through the Conservative- dominated House of Lords. He broke with the Liberal Party by opposing Irish Home Rule (1905) and retired from public life.
Rosecrans \'ro-z3- 1 kranz\, William S(tarke) (b. Sept. 6, 1819, Kingston Township, Ohio, U.S.—d. March 11, 1898, Redondo Junction, Calif.) U.S. general. He served in the army before resigning to become an architect and civil engineer. In the American Civil War he led Union forces to victory at Iuka and Corinth, Miss., and at Murfreesboro, Tenn. In 1863 he advanced on Confederate troops under Braxton Bragg at Chat¬ tanooga, Tenn., forcing them out of the city. An ill-planned move pre¬ cipitated the Battle of Chickamauga and forced his troops to retreat into Chattanooga, where they were besieged; Rosecrans’s error led to his removal from command. He later served in the U.S. House of Represen¬ tatives (1881-85).
rosefish See redfish
rosemary Small perennial evergreen shrub {Rosmarinus officinalis) of the mint family whose leaves are used to flavour a wide variety of food. The bush grows 3-7.5 ft (1-2.3 m) tall and has short linear leaves that resemble curved pine needles, dark green and shiny above, white beneath. Bluish flowers grow in small clusters. Bees are particularly fond of rose¬ mary. In ancient times rosemary was believed to strengthen memory; in literature and folklore it is an emblem of remembrance and fidelity. Native to the Mediterranean, it has been naturalized throughout Europe and tem¬ perate America.
Rosenberg, Alfred (b. Jan. 12, 1893, Reval, Estonia—d. Oct. 16, 1946, Niimberg, Ger.) German Nazi ideologue. As editor of the Nazi Party newspaper from 1921, he drew on the ideas of the English racist Hous¬ ton Stewart Chamberlain for his books espousing German racial purity and anti-Semitism, which reinforced Adolf Hitler’s own extreme prejudices. In World War II he oversaw the transport of stolen art into Germany and was a government official in the occupied eastern territories. After the war he was tried at the NOrnberg trials and hanged as a war criminal.