There is no simple answer to the question, “what is a rose”.  A rose is a rose is a rose...” is what Gertrude Stein wrote.  She thought that by using a single word in a sentence, over and over again, that the reader would conjure up their own imagery of whatever their own personal perception of the word meant to them.  As a gardener, I imagine the obvious, and would define a rose, as a member of the genus “Rosa”, which means it is a flowering, prickly shrub.  There are over 100 different species of this flower.   It’s easy to grow in bright sun and good clay soil, and if you crush the petals of a rose, its fragrance is enhanced.  Its resiliency and toughness, coupled with its beauty and sculptural form, make it a small miracle from the perspective of my gardener’s eye.