Rosa 'Susan Williams-Ellis' 7 September 2025

 

For years Rosemary and I wondered why some of -the new leaves of roses were red. Because that also happened with a popular hedge (a lot of them in Vancouver) Photinia we then understood that the hedge was a member of the rose family. Nobody in the Vancouver Rose Society ever answered my question on to the why. Then I decided to use my search engine.

New leaves on roses can be red due to anthocyanins, protective pigments that shield the vulnerable young foliage from harmful UV rays and sun scorch. This redness is a normal, temporary phase; as the leaves mature, they produce chlorophyll, and the green pigment takes over, causing the red color to fade. In some cases, red leaves can signal a more serious problem like Rose Rosette Disease (RRD), but normal new growth will eventually turn green.

The library of Alexandria was part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion, which was dedicated to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts. The idea of a universal library in Alexandria may have been proposed by Demetrius of Phalerum, an exiled Athenian statesman living in Alexandria, to Ptolemy I Soter, who may have established plans for the library, but the library itself was probably not built until the reign of his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The library quickly acquired many papyrus scrolls, owing largely to the Ptolemaic kings' aggressive and well-funded policies for procuring texts. It is unknown precisely how many scrolls were housed at any given time, but estimates range from 40,000 to 400,000 at its height. Wikipedia

 I was astounded on how accurate and quickly I received and answer to my question: "Why are some new rose leaves red?”

 Now in the late fall of my life I have come to believe that between Wikipedia and a more recent intelligent artificial intelligence we now have at our disposal and digital version of that mouseion. And with that I know the etymology of the modern word museum in English and museo in Spanish.

The one sad aspect of this in this facility for knowledge must be the decline of public libraries. I frequently took my daughters when they were young and then my granddaughters to the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library. What do parents do now with their children?