UN: A Rose for Peace
June 25, 2020
When Francis Meilland first bred a yellow rose with crimson edges, he had no idea that the sweet-smelling flower would one day be famous across the globe as a symbol of peace.
Rose breeders have always networked across the globe.
"I procure hardened, partly frost-resistant, partly old varieties of rose from all over the world and experiment with them. Sometimes I'm lucky and a new variety is born," Francis Meilland once told a fellow horticulturalist.
In 1935, Meilland was very lucky indeed. Following several attempts at cross-breeding, he and his father Antoine managed to create a seedling that was given the code number 3-35-40. The plant from this seedling had healthy, beautiful leaves and yellow flowers tinged with pink or crimson edges.
The most beautiful rose in the world
The inaugural conference of the Universal Rose Selection took place in June 1939.
Among the members were buyers and sellers from the US, Spain, Italy and France, as well as representatives of the Meilland family. Francis Meilland invited them to his house in Tassin-la-Demi-Lune near Lyon.
One of his guests was the German-born buyer and friend of the Meilland family, Paul Pfitzer, who belonged to one of Stuttgart's most famous horticulturalist families.
The delegates enjoyed the hospitality and talked shop in the lush test fields of the Meilland property while in the background, the war loomed.
No other rose caused such excitement to those gathered than the yellow rose with the crimson tinged edges.
But just three months later, World War II broke out. Francis Meilland had little time to disseminate his new variety of rose. He managed to get one batch to Germany and one to Italy just before borders closed.
With the help of the US Consul in Lyon, a few rose cuttings were shipped to America shortly before France was invaded by Nazi Germany. That package was addressed to the American horticulturist and rose breeder Robert Pyle, whom Francis Meilland had met on his first and only trip to the USA.The war made further correspondence between the two men impossible.
A rose baptized by war
So the rose was cultivated in France, Germany, Italy, and the United States — but in each location, it got a different name.
Francis Meilland called it "Madame A. Meilland," after his mother. The rose grew well in Italy too and was named "Joia" (joy).
German horticulturalist Paul Pfitzer was opposed to the Nazi regime and considered Adolf Hitler a satanic monster, a veritable anti-Christ, so in response, Pfitzer gave Meilland's new cultivar the name "Gloria Dei" (Glory of God) in 1942.
Pfitzer had little opportunity to sell the roses during the war, as distribution channels had broken down. As his brother Wilhelm Pfitzer wrote in the company catalog in 1942, purchases were limited to one bush per customer.
A rose becomes a symbol of peace
Meanwhile, rose breeder Robert Pyle managed to convince the American Rose Society of the beauty of Meillard's rose.
In the last days of the war, Pyle wrote an enthusiastic letter to Francis Meilland to tell him that on April 29, 1945, in Pasadena the rose would be given the name "Peace" in a special ceremony.
When plans were made for the event during which two doves were to be released as symbol of world peace, no one knew that it was going to coincide with the fall of Berlin to Allied forces and that the war in Europe would soon be over.
Francis Meilland only received the letter in June. It came as a delightful surprise, his grandson Matthias Meilland told DW.
When the 49 delegates to the inaugural conference of the United Nations assembled on June 22, 1945 in San Francisco, a few days before they would sign the UN Charter, they each found a "Peace" rose in their hotel room with a card from the American Rose Society which read, "This is the Peace rose, christened in Pasadena on the day Berlin fell. We hope the Peace rose will influence men's thoughts for everlasting world peace."
During the subsequent decade, thirty million Peace rose bushes were sold.
In 1976, it became the first cultivar to be awarded the title of World's Favorite Rose.
Francis Meilland died on June 15, 1958, at the age of 46. His simple coffin was adorned with Peace roses. Rose lovers, botanists and rose growers from around the world attended his funeral.