Strange Flowers: Weeping Rose
Weeping Rose (Rosa lineum)
The Weeping Rose grows only in cemeteries, where its flawless camouflage renders the plant nearly indistinguishable from those artificial flowers that adorn the graves of the dead. But make no mistake: although the petals of the Weeping Rose might seem to be made of weathered cloth, and although the stem of the Weeping Rose may feel like cheaply manufactured plastic, this flower is very much alive.
Should the aspiring botanist wish to cultivate this rarest of finds, great care must be taken. The Weeping Rose must be transplanted to a plastic vase along with a generous amount of graveyard soil. Ideally, the potted Weeping Rose should be placed in direct sunlight, alongside certain items: framed stills from classic black-and-white films, bearing images of starlets whose names have faded from public consciousness; photo albums filled with memories of a family that no longer dines together; photographs of unrequited loves, torn and then mended with sellotape; an unfinished manuscript of poetry, bound in golden ribbon; a grandmother’s wedding ring, sealed in a tarnished metal box with locks of hair, baby teeth, and theatre tickets from long ago.
The Weeping Rose will thrive in such an environment, nurtured by regret.
About this Strange Flower
The story of the Weeping Rose will be a part of my upcoming surrealist botanical field guide, Strange Flowers. The story rather obviously hinges on the idea of using nature's endless camouflage techniques as a way of talking about loss and regret. This story went through a number of re-write to end up in the present form; originally I had the idea to set this explicitly in Paris' Pere Lachaise cemetery. In that version the narrator was explicitly written as being closeted and having a mournful fixation on the grave of Oscar Wilde. (Aside: if you've never seen Wilde's tombstone you totally should. It's an amazing bit of art with a stylized stone angel whose enormous phallus was broken off by vandals many years ago.) Although I liked that version of the story, in the end I felt like it didn't fit the tone of the rest of the magazine so I made the setting more ambiguous (which matches the surreal vibe of the rest of the magazine) and I stripped out the explicitly queer content (which I felt made the story less relatable and also made it not fit with the historical story of Dr Sieber around which the whole project is based).
I’ve long been fascinated by those cloth/plastic flowers in cemeteries and that fascinated certainly informed this story. I’ve taken many photographs of cloth flowers over the years, although I’m not sure what, if anything, will become of those images. Since it seems relevant at the moment, thought, I thought I’d share this picture:
The magazine is currently in the layout stage and (hopefully) should be wrapping up soon. Stay tuned!