Erskine McPherson

It was sometime in 1991 that my Rosemary told me that we were going that evening to a meeting of the Vancouver Rose Society. When there, I told Rosemary, “Why have you brought me here? I am sitting on an uncomfortably hard chair watching 100 bad slides of Roses.” Eventually I saw the light while avoiding almost always taking photographs of individual roses but scanning them. I became a rose fanatic (rosarian).

Furthermore I was charmed by a hilariously funny old man called Erskine McPherson, who behind his pleasant demeanour knew his roses.

I am now the oldest member of the organization and I fully lack McPherson’s charm. I am losing interest in going to the meetings like the one today at Van Dusen’s Floral Hall. But I cannot give up on the goodies and the tea and coffee.

My interest in roses, early on, branched out into their history and the significance of their names. Since 2001 when I first started scanning the plants in my garden I have accumulated thousands of rose scans.

Today I will take a scan of Rosa sericea ssp. omiensis var. pteracantha which has been in bloom now (ectremely rare as roses will bloom at the end of May) for five days. Since I am the only one in the society who has this rare species rose (the only one with four petals as the species roses have five), the presence of my scan (scanned today) and the cut rose I scanned in a little vase next to it will not generate any questions or comments.

We are living in a world where pictures and photographs are seen (scrolled)  in phones but actual photographs are never held in hands. Few print now.

I am sure that McPherson would at the very least make a small comment and smile.