When it comes to the hue of a rose, one person's blue is another's pallid purple. "Applause", the new rose unveiled by Japanese company Suntory this week is said to have "a bluish tinge reminiscent of the sky just after dawn". To my eye, it's just a wishy-washy mauve.
People have claimed the blue-rose title before, with boldly named varieties such as "Blue Moon" or "Rhapsody in Blue", but they're always a bit of a disappointment to those expecting sapphire shades; think lilac, magenta or lavender instead. You could cheat by putting white roses in dyed water to produce a vivid – but undoubtedly odd-looking – blue rose of the kind that graced so many 50s curtains.But a truly blue rose is the horticultural holy grail.
Growers have been breeding roses for thousands of years in search of new hues, but until now, blue petals have evaded them. And for good reason – roses lack delphinidin, a blue plant pigment common to pansies, petunias and (unsurprisingly) delphiniums. There are only a few properly blue flowers – the Himalayan blue poppy, the forget-me-not and the bluebell among them – but the appeal of a blue bloom is its rarity. No wonder, then, that in the Victorian language of flowers, blue roses signify achieving the impossible. In these days of genetic modification, the impossible is within grasp – scientists at Suntory simply added a gene that creates the necessary delphinidin.
Applause roses go on sale in Japan next month priced 2,000-3,000 yen (around £15) a stem. But I tend to agree with Rudyard Kipling, who wrote a poem in which his lover sent him on an impossible quest for blue roses, "Roses white and red are best."
