Spectrum of Homeopathy 2023-3, Roses and Their Sisters

3/2023 ROSES and their Sisters

“A rose is a rose is a rose.” This sentence by Gertrude Stein is often quoted when something is perfectly clear and unambiguous. In this issue of SPEKTRUM you will see that this does not so readily apply to Rosidae, Rosales and Rosaceae. In the far‑flung clan of “roses and their sisters” one finds the proud and beautiful cultivated roses as well as their wild, unsightly, but often very useful relatives. As different as the members of this extended family are, so ambivalent is our image of roses. Their sweet scent and the enchantment that emanates from them make them a symbol of sensuality and romantic love. At the same time, however, they also stand for transience, pain and injury.

In the articles in this issue we find various forms of love: the self‑love of the proud, beautiful Rosa damascena, the idealising, smothering love of Agrimonia eupatoria, the love of work in Hippophae rhamnoides or the spiritual love of Ficus carica. The fig tree belongs to the Rosidae just as much as sea buckthorn or wood avens. Among dicotyledonous flowering plants, the Rosidae constitute subclass 5 in Cronquist’s botanical system, to which Michal Yakir and Rajan Sankaran refer. The two homoeopathic pioneers present their understanding of this subclass in their respective contributions — one from the perspective of human individuation, the other from the point of view of his sensation method. Their findings, together with those from Jan Scholten’s plant theory, play an important role in the case analyses in this issue. The authors thus provide numerous instructive examples for the practical application of the various homoeopathic plant systems.

The diversity and contradictions in the rose garden are reflected in the case histories of our international authors on the Rosales and on some plant remedies from related orders of the Rosidae. This issue of SPEKTRUM sharpens the group portrait of the rose clan and aims to help recognise subclass, order and family of roses so clearly in practice that, as Laurie Dack does in the title to the moving account of a collapsing baby, one can say with conviction: “A rose is a rose is a rose.” In this case Laurocerasus is the simile for mother and child. It is in the family.