by A. South

Created on: March 18, 2009   Last Updated: May 07, 2012

You know they're lovely, fragrant, and make most any girl smile, but how much do you really know about roses? There's more to these flowers than love and romance though. Namely, roses are big business. Valentine's Day is the busiest day of the year in the floral industry. Here are a few interesting facts about the flower of romance, and a look at the fragrant industry of roses.

• The average price of a dozen long-stemmed red roses in 2008 was $80.

• In 1898, the price of a single rose from a New York florist was $3.75. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $93 per rose.

• On Valentine's Day in 2008, a whopping 214 million roses were sold in the United States. 59% of them were red.

• Just in time for Valentine's Day, rose prices typically jump 42% in February.

• The rose is the official state flower of Iowa, North Dakota, New York and Georgia.

• In the United States, only 7% of cut roses were imported in 1979. A lot has changed in 30 years. Now, more than 90% are. Two-thirds of the 1.5 billion-plus flowers come from Colombia.

• There are more than 15,000 different types of rose species and cultivated varieties worldwide.

• An English rose breeder spent roughly 14 years of his live and $5.5 million to cultivate the Juliet rose. The apricot-colored flower is the most expensive rose every privately developed.

• The Japanese firm Suntory spent 18 years of research to do what was long thought impossible: creating a blue roses. They achieved the feat by insteting pansy genes into the Cardinal de Richelieu, a mauve rose.

• Those 18 years of research are poised to pay off and then some. The potential market for blue roses is estimated at $303.5 million a year. Blue roses will debut in flower shops in 2009.

• A nursery will name a rose after you for a fee. To have the next rose named, not just any other name, but your name, you'll have to fork over $15,000.

• There are a few guidelines on naming roses. The International Cultivar Registration Authority requires that new rose names must have a maximum of 10 syllables and 30 letters. The idea is to avoid grandiloquent names like the Souvenir de la Princesse Alexis Swiatopolk-Czetwertinski.

• Before selecting the rose that would bear her name, Barbara Streisand perused three hybrid teas for two years in her rose garden, which has 1,200 roses. The "Barbara Streisand" rose is a lavender hybrid tea rose with a pink blush.

Want more facts and figures about the rose and the industry behind it? Check out Douglas Brenner and Stephen Scanniello's new book, "A Rose by Any Other Name."

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