The Omar Khayyam Rose is in bloom

The Omar Khayyam rose in our garden has finally come into flower  There are more buds than usual this year and they are opening in succession which is a delight.  Below are a couple of pictures.

The rose now being sold in the UK as rosa Omar Khayyam is an old fashioned damask rose, of the same type as that which was found growing at the tomb of Khayyam in Nishapur in the late 19th century.  As the story goes, seeds from the Nishapur rose were brought back from Iran and grown on at Kew Gardens in London.  A plant raised from these seeds was subsequently planted near Edward FitzGerald’s tomb in Boulge, Suffolk, by members of the Omar Khayyam Club of London in 1893.  A similar rose still grows by the tomb, though it appears to have been replanted several times over the years.  It is unlikely that the rose in our garden, and others being sold in various rose nurseries, have any physical link to the original Persian rose, but the historical associations are to be cherished, and the rose itself remains a beautiful reminder of the verses of the Rubaiyat.

For anyone who would like to know more about the story of the Omar Khayyam rose, there is an excellent short article on the following link https://indiairantrust.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/downsized-indiran.pdf.  The article also quotes several of the verses in FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat that mention roses in different manifestations.