Thematic Photographic - Single

Every week Carmi at Written, Inc. poses a theme for photographic inspiration. This week's theme is SINGLE.

A single rose. A single single rose.

We're all used to the finely-shaped hybrid tea roses with their pointed buds wrapped in tender petals. And we swoon over the lush, multi-petal old roses, with their flat faces, their hundreds of petals crammed together so tightly.

But the first roses, the species roses, are simple flowers - a golden boss of stamens surrounded by five wide delicate petals. Colors are usually white, pale yellow, pale pink, or a deep but clear crimson.

Rosarians call this form of flower "single." There are also flowers that are called "double", or "semi-double" depending on how many petals there are.

This blossom above is a picture of a bloom from a huge thorny shrub growing on a fence by a nearby driveway, here in Topanga, California. Because of the color, habit, and characteristics of the rose, and because the property used to belong to an Englishwoman who was a professional gardener, I believe it is the single rose "Mermaid."