Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University is a public research university in College Station, United States. Since 1948, it has been the founding member of the Texas A&M University System; the Texas A&M system endowment is among the 10 largest endowments in the nation. As of 2017, Texas A&M's student body is the largest in Texas and the second largest in the United States. Texas A&M's designation as a land and space grant institution–the only university in Texas to hold all three designations–reflects a range of research with ongoing projects funded by organizations such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research. In 2001, Texas A&M was inducted as a member of the Association of American Universities; the school's students, alumni—over 450,000 strong—and sports teams are known as Aggies. The Texas A&M Aggies athletes compete in 18 varsity sports as a member of the Southeastern Conference; the first public institution of higher education in Texas, the school opened on October 4, 1876, as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas under the provisions of the Morrill Land-Grant Acts.
The college taught no classes in agriculture, instead concentrating on classical studies, languages and applied mathematics. After four years, students could attain degrees in scientific agriculture and mechanical engineering, language and literature. Under the leadership of President James Earl Rudder in the 1960s, A. M. C. Desegregated, became coeducational, dropped the requirement for participation in the Corps of Cadets. To reflect the institution's expanded roles and academic offerings, the Texas Legislature renamed the school to Texas A&M University in 1963; the letters "A&M," A. M. C. Short for "Agricultural and Mechanical College," are retained as a link to the university's tradition; the main campus is one of the largest in the United States, spanning 5,200 acres, is home to the George Bush Presidential Library. About one-fifth of the student body lives on campus. Texas A&M has more than 1,000 recognized student organizations. Many students observe the traditions, which govern daily life, as well as special occasions, including sports events.
Working with various A&M-related agencies, the school has a direct presence in each of the 254 counties in Texas. The university offers degrees in more than 150 courses of study through ten colleges and houses 18 research institutes; as a Senior Military College, Texas A&M is one of six American public universities with a full-time, volunteer Corps of Cadets who study alongside civilian undergraduate students. The U. S. Congress laid the groundwork for the establishment of A. M. C. in 1862 with the adoption of the Morrill Act. The act auctioned land grants of public lands to establish endowments for colleges where the "leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and mechanical arts... to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life". In 1871, the Texas Legislature used these funds to establish the state's first public institution of higher education, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas known as Texas A.
M. C. Brazos County donated 2,416 acres near Bryan, for the school's campus. A detailed listing and backgrounds of all of the University's presidents can be found on the Brazos County Texas Genealogical Association's site Enrollment began on October 2, 1876. Six students enrolled on the first day, classes began on October 4, 1876, with six faculty members. During the first semester, enrollment increased to 48 students, by the end of the spring 1877 semester, 106 students had enrolled. Admission was limited to white males, all students were required to participate in the Corps of Cadets and receive military training. Although traditional Texas A&M University Corps of Cadets "campusologies" indicate 40 students began classes on October 4, 1876, the exact number of students enrolled on that day is unknown. Enrollment climbed to 258 students before declining to 108 students in 1883, the year the University of Texas opened in Austin, Texas. Although envisioned and annotated in the Texas Constitution as a branch of the University of Texas, Texas A.
M. C. had a separate Board of Directors from the University of Texas from the first day of classes and was never enveloped into the University of Texas System. In the late 1880s, many Texas residents saw no need for two colleges in Texas and clamored for an end of Texas A. M. C. In 1891, Texas A. M. C. was saved from potential closure by its new president Lawrence Sullivan Ross, former governor of Texas, well-respected Confederate Brigadier General. Ross made many improvements to the school and enrollment doubled to 467 cadets as parents sent their sons to Texas A. M. C. "to learn to be like Ross". During his tenure, many enduring Aggie traditions were born, including the creation of the first Aggie Ring. After his death in 1898, a statue was erected in front of what is now Academic Plaza to honor Ross and his achievements in the history of the school. In 2017, the status of this statue was in doubt after other schools removed statues of former Confederate officers. In contrast, the Texas A&M Chancellor and President announced the Sul Ross statue would remain as Ross's statue's place of honor was not based upon his service in the Confederate Army.
Under pressure from the legislature, in 1911 the school began allowing women to attend classes during the summer semester. At the same time, A. M. C. began expanding its academic pursuits with the establishment o
Virginia Military Institute
Founded 11 November 1839 in Lexington, the Virginia Military Institute is the oldest state-supported military college and the first public Senior Military College in the United States. In keeping with its founding principles and unlike any other Senior Military College in the United States, VMI enrolls cadets only and awards baccalaureate degrees exclusively. VMI offers its students, all of whom are cadets, strict military discipline combined with a physically and academically demanding environment; the Institute grants degrees in 14 disciplines in engineering, the sciences and liberal arts, all VMI students are required to participate in one of the four ROTC programs. While VMI has been called "The West Point of the South", it differs from the federal military service academies; as of 2019, VMI had a total enrollment of 1,722 cadets. All cadets must participate in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps of the United States Armed Forces programs, but are afforded the flexibility of pursuing civilian endeavors or accepting an officer's commission in any of the active or reserve components of any of the U.
S. military branches upon graduation. VMI's alumni include a Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, 7 Medal of Honor recipients, 13 Rhodes Scholars, Pulitzer Prize winners, an Academy Award winner, an Emmy Award and Golden Globe winner, a martyr recognized by the Episcopal Church and Representatives, including the current Governor of Virginia, Lieutenant Governors, a Supreme Court Justice, numerous college and university presidents, many business leaders and over 285 general and flag officers across all US service branches and several other countries; the Board of Visitors is the supervisory board of the Virginia Military Institute. Although the Governor is ex officio the commander-in-chief of the Institute, no one may be declared a graduate without his signature, he delegates to the Board the responsibility for developing the Institute's policy; the Board appoints the Superintendent and approves appointment of members of the faculty and staff on the recommendation of the Superintendent.
The Board may make bylaws and regulations for their own government and the management of the affairs of the Institute, while the Institute is exempt from the Administrative Process Act in accordance with Va. Code § 2.2-4002, some of its regulations are codified at 8VAC 100. The Executive Committee conducts the business of the Board during recesses; the Board has 17 members, including ex officio the Adjutant General of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Regular members may be reappointed once. Of the sixteen appointed members, twelve must be alumni of the Institute, eight of whom must be residents of Virginia and four must be non-residents; the Executive Committee consists of the Board's President, three Vice Presidents, one non-alumnus at large, is appointed by the Board at each annual meeting. Under the militia bill officers of the Institute were recognized as part of the military establishment of the state, the Governor had authority to issue commissions to them in accordance with Institute regulations.
Current law makes provision for officers of the Virginia Militia to be subject to orders of the Governor. The cadets are a military corps under the command of the Superintendent and under the administration of the Commandant of Cadets, constitute the guard of the Institute. In the years after the War of 1812, the Commonwealth of Virginia built and maintained several arsenals to store weapons intended for use by the state militia in the event of invasion or slave revolt. In the 1830s Lexington attorney John Thomas Lewis Preston belonged to a debate club known as the Franklin Society. In 1836 he made the case to the society that the arsenal in Lexington could be put to better use as a normal school for providing education on practical subjects, as well as military training to individuals who could be expected to serve as officers in the militia if needed. After debate and revision of the original proposal, the Franklin Society voted in favor of Preston's concept. After a public relations campaign that included Preston meeting in person with influential business and political figures, letters to editors of prominent news sources from Preston writing under a pen name, many other open letters from prominent supporters, in 1836 the Virginia legislature passed a bill authorizing creation of a school at the Lexington arsenal, the Governor signed the measure into law.
The organizers of the planned school formed a board of visitors, which included Preston, the board selected Claudius Crozet, a prominent officer and engineer under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte, to serve as their President. Crozet was the Chief Engineer of Virginia and someone whom Thomas Jefferson referred to as, "the smartest mathematician in the United States." The board delegated to Preston the task of deciding what to call the new school, he created the name Virginia Military Institute. Preston was tasked with hiring VMI's first Superintendent, he was persuaded that West Point graduate and Army officer Francis Henney Smith on the faculty at Hampden–Sydney College, was the most suitable candidate. Preston recruited Smith, convinced him to become the first Superintendent and Professor of Tactics. In an endeavor unique to the United States, Preston and Smith founded VMI intending to create a hybrid of the best characteristics
Fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities, or Greek letter organizations, are social organizations at colleges and universities. A form of the social fraternity, they are prominent in the United States, with small numbers of non-residential fraternities existing in France and the Philippines. Similar organizations exist in other countries as well, including the Studentenverbindungen of German-speaking countries. Similar, but much less common, organizations exist for secondary school students, as do fraternal orders for other adults. In modern usage, "Greek letter organization" is synonymous with the terms "fraternity" and "sorority". Two additional types of fraternities, professional fraternities and honor societies, incorporate some limited elements of traditional fraternity organization, but are considered a different type of association. Traditional fraternities of the type described in this article are called "social fraternities". Membership in a fraternity or sorority is obtained as an undergraduate student but continues, for life.
Some of these organizations can accept graduate students as well as undergraduates, per constitutional provisions. Individual fraternities and sororities vary in organization and purpose, but most share five common elements: Secrecy Single-sex membership Selection of new members on the basis of a two-part vetting and probationary process known as rushing and pledging Ownership and occupancy of a residential property where undergraduate members live A set of complex identification symbols that may include Greek letters, armorial achievements, badges, hand signs, passwords and colorsFraternities and sororities engage in philanthropic activities, host parties, provide "finishing" training for new members such as instruction on etiquette and manners, create networking opportunities for their newly graduated members; the first fraternity in North America to incorporate most of the elements of modern fraternities was Phi Beta Kappa, founded at the College of William and Mary in 1775. The founding of Phi Beta Kappa followed the earlier establishment of two other secret student societies that had existed at that campus as early as 1750.
In 1779 Phi Beta Kappa expanded to include chapters at Yale. By the early 19th century, the organization transformed itself into a scholastic honor society and abandoned secrecy. In 1825, Kappa Alpha Society, the oldest extant fraternity to retain its social characteristic, was established at Union College. In 1827, Sigma Phi and Delta Phi were founded at the same institution, creating the Union Triad; the further birthing of Psi Upsilon, Chi Psi and Theta Delta Chi collectively established Union College as the Mother of Fraternities. It should be noted that the social fraternity Chi Phi, although formed in 1854, traces its roots to 1824, oldest.org considers it the oldest social fraternity. Fraternities represented the intersection between dining clubs, literary societies and secret initiatory orders such as Freemasonry, their early growth was opposed by university administrators, though the increasing influence of fraternity alumni, as well as several high-profile court cases, succeeded in muting opposition by the 1880s.
The first fraternity meeting hall, or lodge, seems to have been that of the Alpha Epsilon chapter of Chi Psi at the University of Michigan in 1845, leading to a tradition in that fraternity to name its buildings "lodges". As fraternity membership was punishable by expulsion at many colleges at this time, the house was located deep in the woods; the first residential chapter home, built by a fraternity, is believed to have been Alpha Delta Phi's chapter at Cornell, with groundbreaking dated to 1878. Alpha Tau Omega became the first fraternity to own a residential house in the South when, in 1880, its chapter at the University of the South acquired one. Chapters of many fraternities followed suit and less building them with support of alumni. Phi Sigma Kappa's chapter home at Cornell, completed in 1902, is the oldest such house still occupied by its fraternal builders. Sororities began to develop in 1851 with the formation of the Adelphean Society Alpha Delta Pi, though fraternity-like organizations for women didn't take their current form until the establishment of Pi Beta Phi in 1867 and Kappa Alpha Theta in 1870.
The term "sorority" was invented by a professor of Latin who felt the word "fraternity" was inappropriate for a group of ladies. The first organization to use the term "sorority" was Gamma Phi Beta, established in 1874; the development of "fraternities for women" during this time was a major accomplishment in the way of women's rights and equality. By mere existence, these organizations were defying the odds; the first "Women's Fraternities" not only had to overcome "restrictive social customs, unequal status under the law and the underlying presumption that they were less able than men," but at the same time had to deal with the same challenges as fraternities with college administrations. Today, both social and multicultural sororities are present on more than 650 college campuses across the United States and Canada; the National Panhellenic Conference serves as the "umbrella organization" for 26 national sororities. Founded in 1902, the NPC is one of the oldest and largest women's membership organizations, representing more than 4 million women at 655 college/university campuses and 4,500 local alumnae chapters in the U.
S. and Canada. In 1867, the Chi Phi fraternity established its Theta chapter at the University of Edi
Love
Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection and to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of meanings is that the love of a mother differs from the love of a spouse, which differs from the love of food. Most love refers to a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment. Love is considered to be a virtue representing human kindness and affection, as "the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another", it may describe compassionate and affectionate actions towards other humans, one's self or animals. Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts. Love has been postulated to be a function to keep human beings together against menaces and to facilitate the continuation of the species. Ancient Greek philosophers identified five forms of love: familial love, friendly love or platonic love, romantic love, guest love and divine love.
Modern authors have distinguished further varieties of love: unrequited love, infatuated love, self-love, courtly love. Asian cultures have distinguished Ren, Bhakti, Mettā, Ishq and other variants or symbioses of these states. Love has additional spiritual meaning; this diversity of uses and meanings combined with the complexity of the feelings involved makes love unusually difficult to define, compared to other emotional states. The word "love" can have a variety of distinct meanings in different contexts. Many other languages use multiple words to express some of the different concepts that in English are denoted as "love". Cultural differences in conceptualizing love thus doubly impede the establishment of a universal definition. Although the nature or essence of love is a subject of frequent debate, different aspects of the word can be clarified by determining what isn't love. Love as a general expression of positive sentiment is contrasted with hate; as a less-sexual and more-emotionally intimate form of romantic attachment, love is contrasted with lust.
As an interpersonal relationship with romantic overtones, love is sometimes contrasted with friendship, although the word love is applied to close friendships or platonic love.. Abstractly discussed, love refers to an experience one person feels for another. Love involves caring for, or identifying with, a person or thing, including oneself. In addition to cross-cultural differences in understanding love, ideas about love have changed over time; some historians date modern conceptions of romantic love to courtly Europe during or after the Middle Ages, although the prior existence of romantic attachments is attested by ancient love poetry. The complex and abstract nature of love reduces discourse of love to a thought-terminating cliché. Several common proverbs regard love, from Virgil's "Love conquers all" to The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love". St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, defines love as "to will the good of another." Bertrand Russell describes love as a condition of "absolute value,".
Philosopher Gottfried Leibniz said that love is "to be delighted by the happiness of another." Meher Baba stated that in love there is a "feeling of unity" and an "active appreciation of the intrinsic worth of the object of love." Biologist Jeremy Griffith defines love as "unconditional selflessness". People can be said to love an object, principle, or goal to which they are committed and value. For example, compassionate outreach and volunteer workers' "love" of their cause may sometimes be born not of interpersonal love but impersonal love and strong spiritual or political convictions. People can "love" material objects, animals, or activities if they invest themselves in bonding or otherwise identifying with those things. If sexual passion is involved this feeling is called paraphilia. A common principle that people say they love is life itself. Interpersonal love refers to love between human beings, it is a much more potent sentiment than a simple liking for a person. Unrequited love refers to those feelings of love.
Interpersonal love is most associated with interpersonal relationships. Such love might exist between family members and couples. There are a number of psychological disorders related to love, such as erotomania. Throughout history and religion have done the most speculation on the phenomenon of love. In the 20th century, the science of psychology has written a great deal on the subject. In recent years, the sciences of psychology, anthropology and biology have added to the understanding the concept of love. Biological models of sex tend to view love as a mammalian drive, much like thirst. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist and human behavior researcher, divides the experience of love into three overlapping stages: lust and attachment. Lust is the feeling of sexual desire. Three distinct
Truth
Truth is most used to mean being in accord with fact or reality, or fidelity to an original or standard. Truth is sometimes defined in modern contexts as an idea of "truth to self", or authenticity. Truth is held to be opposite to falsehood, correspondingly, can suggest a logical, factual, or ethical meaning; the concept of truth is discussed and debated in several contexts, including philosophy, art and science. Most human activities depend upon the concept, where its nature as a concept is assumed rather than being a subject of discussion; some philosophers view the concept of truth as basic, unable to be explained in any terms that are more understood than the concept of truth itself. To some, truth is viewed as the correspondence of language or thought to an independent reality, in what is sometimes called the correspondence theory of truth. Various theories and views of truth continue to be debated among scholars and theologians. Language is a means; the method used to determine whether something is a truth is termed a criterion of truth.
There are varying stances on such questions as what constitutes truth: what things are truthbearers capable of being true or false. The English word truth is derived from Old English tríewþ, tréowþ, trýwþ, Middle English trewþe, cognate to Old High German triuwida, Old Norse tryggð. Like troth, it is a -th nominalisation of the adjective true; the English word true is from Old English tríewe, tréowe, cognate to Old Saxon trûui, Old High German triuwu, Old Norse tryggr, Gothic triggws, all from a Proto-Germanic *trewwj- "having good faith" ultimately from PIE *dru- "tree", on the notion of "steadfast as an oak". Old Norse trú, "word of honour. Thus,'truth' involves both the quality of "faithfulness, loyalty, veracity", that of "agreement with fact or reality", in Anglo-Saxon expressed by sōþ. All Germanic languages besides English have introduced a terminological distinction between truth "fidelity" and truth "factuality". To express "factuality", North Germanic opted for nouns derived from sanna "to assert, affirm", while continental West Germanic opted for continuations of wâra "faith, pact".
Romance languages use terms following the Latin veritas, while the Greek aletheia, Russian pravda and South Slavic istina have separate etymological origins. The question of what is a proper basis for deciding how words, symbols and beliefs may properly be considered true, whether by a single person or an entire society, is dealt with by the five most prevalent substantive theories of truth listed below; each presents perspectives that are shared by published scholars. Theories other than the most prevalent substantive theories are discussed. More developed "deflationary" or "minimalist" theories of truth have emerged as possible alternatives to the most prevalent substantive theories. Minimalist reasoning centres around the notion that the application of a term like true to a statement does not assert anything significant about it, for instance, anything about its nature. Minimalist reasoning realises truth as a label utilised in general discourse to express agreement, to stress claims, or to form general assumptions.
Correspondence theories emphasise that true beliefs and true statements correspond to the actual state of affairs. This type of theory stresses a relationship between thoughts or statements on one hand, things or objects on the other, it is a traditional model tracing its origins to ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates and Aristotle. This class of theories holds that the truth or the falsity of a representation is determined in principle by how it relates to "things", by whether it describes those "things." A classic example of correspondence theory is the statement by the thirteenth century philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas: "Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus", which Aquinas attributed to the ninth century Neoplatonist Isaac Israeli. Aquinas restated the theory as: "A judgment is said to be true when it conforms to the external reality". Correspondence theory centres around the assumption that truth is a matter of copying what is known as "objective reality" and representing it in thoughts and other symbols.
Many modern theorists have stated that this ideal cannot be achieved without analysing additional factors. For example, language plays a role in that all languages have words to represent concepts that are undefined in other languages; the German word Zeitgeist is one such example: one who speaks or understands the language may "know" what it means, but any translation of the word fails to capture its full meaning. Thus, some words add an additional parameter to the construction of an accurate truth predicate. Among the philosophers who grappled with this problem is Alfred Tarski, whose semantic theory is summarized further below in this article. Proponents of several of the theories below have gone further to a
Old Dominion University
Old Dominion University is a public research university in Norfolk, Virginia. It was established in 1930 as the Norfolk Division of the College of William & Mary and is now one of the largest universities in Virginia with an enrollment of 24,670 students for the 2014-2015 academic year, its main campus covers over 251 acres straddling the city neighborhoods of Larchmont, Highland Park, Lambert's Point five miles from Downtown Norfolk. Old Dominion University is classified among "Doctoral Universities: Higher Research Activity" and provides nearly $2 billion annually to the regional economy; the university offers 168 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to over 24,000 students and is one of the nation's largest providers of online distance learning courses. Old Dominion University has 124,000 alumni in all 50 states and 67 countries. Old Dominion University derives its name from one of Virginia's state nicknames, "The Old Dominion", given to the state by King Charles II of England for remaining loyal to the crown during the English Civil War.
The foundations of Old Dominion University began in the minds of administrators and officials at the College of William and Mary in the first decades of the twentieth century. Notable among these men were Robert M. Hughes, a member of the Board of Visitors of William and Mary from 1893 to 1917, J. A. C. Chandler, the eighteenth president of that school. In 1924 after becoming the director of the William and Mary extension in Norfolk, Joseph Healy began organizing classes and finding locations for faculty and staff, he along with the collective efforts of Robert M. Hughes, Dr. J. A. C. Chandler, A. H. Foreman, a two-year branch division was established on March 13, 1930. On September 12, 1930, the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary held its first class with 206 students in the old Larchmont School building, an abandoned elementary school on Hampton Boulevard. On September 3, 1930, H. Edgar Timmerman became the Division's first director. "The Division", as it was called, started out in the old Larchmont School building and allowed people with less financial assets to attend a school of higher education for two years.
Tuition for the first year was 50 USD. The following September, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, more known as Virginia Tech, began offering classes at "The Division", expanding the number of courses taught. Old Dominion began educating engineers. Created in the first year of the Great Depression, the college benefited from federal funding as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal; the Public Works Administration provided funds for the Administration Building, now Rollins Hall, Foreman Field, named after A. H. Foreman, an early proponent of the college. In 1932, Lewis Warrington Webb joined the faculty as an instructor of engineering. After serving ten years as an instructor at the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary, Webb was appointed assistant director in 1942. Webb served as director of the Defense and War Training Program at the college from 1940 to 1944. Through its defense and training classes, the Norfolk Division contributed to the war effort; the program allowed the school to remain open during a period when most young men were serving their country.
The program attracted many women, who learn aircraft repair and other war-related subjects. In 1946, Webb was appointed Director of the Norfolk Division. Webb's dream was to see the Norfolk Division become an independent institution; the two-year Norfolk Division evolved into a four-year institution, Webb saw his dream fulfilled in 1962 when the Norfolk Division gained its independence from William and Mary. On February 16, 1962, the William and Mary system was dissolved under General Assembly legislation, signed by Governor Albertis S. Harrison; that year the Norfolk Division was renamed Old Dominion College. Dr. Webb served as the first president of Old Dominion College from 1962 to 1969. Frank Batten, the publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star and member of the Norfolk Division's advisory board, was chosen as the first rector of Old Dominion College on May 27, 1962, he held the position of rector until 1970 and the College of Engineering was named in his honor in 2004. In 1964, the first students lived on campus in the first dormitories and Gresham hall which were names after members of the advisory board.
In 1969, Old Dominion College transitioned to Old Dominion University under the leadership of President James L. Bugg, Jr. During Bugg's tenure the first doctoral programs were established along with a university-wide governance structure in which faculty and students were represented. Bugg reestablished the Army ROTC program, created in 1948 but had been abandoned because of the outbreak of the Korean War. In the 1970s, during the tenure of President Alfred B. Rollins, Jr. Old Dominion began mutual partnerships between regional organizations such as NASA, the U. S. Navy, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk State University; this was a result of Dr. Rollins goal of becoming the leading educational institution in the Hampton Roads area. Under Rollins, the university expanded its state and private funding, improved student services and introduced an honors program along with many other improvements to the university. In 1971 the university established its own campus police force and hired several police officers to patrol the campus.
In 1977, the Virginia Campus Police Act was made into a law, the university helped train local and campus police officers and the campus police officers were given full police authority on and
Rose
A rose is a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus Rosa, in the family Rosaceae, or the flower it bears. There are over thousands of cultivars, they form a group of plants that can be erect shrubs, climbing, or trailing, with stems that are armed with sharp prickles. Flowers vary in size and shape and are large and showy, in colours ranging from white through yellows and reds. Most species are native to Asia, with smaller numbers native to Europe, North America, northwestern Africa. Species and hybrids are all grown for their beauty and are fragrant. Roses have acquired cultural significance in many societies. Rose plants range in size from compact, miniature roses, to climbers that can reach seven meters in height. Different species hybridize and this has been used in the development of the wide range of garden roses; the name rose comes from French, itself from Latin rosa, borrowed from Oscan, from Greek ρόδον rhódon, itself borrowed from Old Persian wrd-, related to Avestan varəδa, Sogdian ward, Parthian wâr.
The leaves are borne alternately on the stem. In most species they are 5 to 15 centimetres long, with 5–9 leaflets and basal stipules. Most roses are deciduous but a few are evergreen or nearly so; the flowers of most species have five petals, with the exception of Rosa sericea, which has only four. Each petal is divided into two distinct lobes and is white or pink, though in a few species yellow or red. Beneath the petals are five sepals; these may be long enough to be visible when viewed from above and appear as green points alternating with the rounded petals. There are multiple superior ovaries. Roses are insect-pollinated in nature; the aggregate fruit of the rose is a berry-like structure. Many of the domestic cultivars do not produce hips, as the flowers are so petalled that they do not provide access for pollination; the hips of most species are red. Each hip comprises an outer fleshy layer, the hypanthium, which contains 5–160 "seeds" embedded in a matrix of fine, but stiff, hairs. Rose hips of some species the dog rose and rugosa rose, are rich in vitamin C, among the richest sources of any plant.
The hips are eaten by fruit-eating birds such as thrushes and waxwings, which disperse the seeds in their droppings. Some birds finches eat the seeds; the sharp growths along a rose stem, though called "thorns", are technically prickles, outgrowths of the epidermis, unlike true thorns, which are modified stems. Rose prickles are sickle-shaped hooks, which aid the rose in hanging onto other vegetation when growing over it; some species such as Rosa rugosa and Rosa pimpinellifolia have densely packed straight prickles an adaptation to reduce browsing by animals, but possibly an adaptation to trap wind-blown sand and so reduce erosion and protect their roots. Despite the presence of prickles, roses are browsed by deer. A few species of roses have only vestigial prickles; the genus Rosa is subdivided into four subgenera: Hulthemia containing two species from southwest Asia, Rosa persica and Rosa berberifolia, which are the only roses without compound leaves or stipules. Hesperrhodos contains Rosa stellata, from North America.
Platyrhodon with one species from east Asia, Rosa roxburghii. Rosa containing all the other roses; this subgenus is subdivided into 11 sections. Banksianae – white and yellow flowered roses from China. Bracteatae – three species, two from China and one from India. Caninae – pink and white flowered species from Asia and North Africa. Carolinae – white and bright pink flowered species all from North America. Chinensis – white, yellow and mixed-color roses from China and Burma. Gallicanae – pink to crimson and striped flowered roses from western Asia and Europe. Gymnocarpae – one species in western North America, others in east Asia. Laevigatae – a single white flowered species from China. Pimpinellifoliae – white, bright yellow and striped roses from Asia and Europe. Rosa – white, lilac and red roses from everywhere but North Africa. Synstylae – white and crimson flowered roses from all areas. Roses are best known as ornamental plants grown for their flowers in the garden and sometimes indoors, they have been used for commercial perfumery and commercial cut flower crops.
Some are used as landscape plants, for hedging and for other utilitarian purposes such as game cover and slope stabilization. The majority of ornamental roses are hybrids. A few species roses are grown for attractive or scented foliage, ornamental thorns or for their showy fruit. Ornamental roses have been cultivated for millennia, with the earliest known cultivation known to date from at least 500 BC in Mediterranean countries, P
