I compare you to a kiss from a rose

‘The personal emblem of Elizabeth I was the dog rose. An intriguing choice, perhaps, for the Virgin Queen’

AN old rhyming riddle went thus: ‘On a summer’s day, in sultry weather, Five brethren were born together. Two had beards and two had none, And the other had but half a one’. The answer: the flower of the dog rose. The earliest attribution is in the 13th century and several Latin versions were recorded, but this was not as abstruse a bit of clerical nonsense as we might suppose, for the dog rose enjoyed an important role in the era of plant-based medicine. An intimate association with hedgerow lore ensured an awareness, at least among