It's a bit weird that our base view of some forms of life is the highly selected warped version we've created over centuries. Roses with a single row of petals were the original form, and are still cultivated in many varieties, but don't look like what most of us think of as roses, I guess in the same way that the wild ancestors of many fruits and vegetables don't look like their highly-selectively-bred descendants.
Corn is my favourite example of this, mostly because it went the other direction, ie, the kinds of corn that haven't been cultivated to their current form over centuries is way cooler than the yellow we are used to!
There is blue, red, and disco ball "all colours" extravaganza corn.
AlotOfReading•9mo ago
The wild teosinte ancestors of corn are nigh-indistinguishable from dozens of other kinds of wild grasses in Mexico and Central America. The red and glass gem field corns are usually new varieties developed in the last century or so, comparable to roses in this analogy. Pretty much the only commonly available product made from heritage varieties is blue cornmeal, which usually comes from puebloan blue varieties still cultivated commercially.
kees99•9mo ago
Depending on your definition of "rose", this statement is potentially false.
TFA mentions "genus Rosa". If that's the definition, this is false. Wild R. canina is pink:
abeppu•9mo ago
http://www.santaclaritarose.org/Singles.html
amarant•9mo ago
There is blue, red, and disco ball "all colours" extravaganza corn.
AlotOfReading•9mo ago