Along a rose cane, the sharp points seem to announce a simple fact: this plant bears thorns. The name is wrong. In botanical morphology, a thorn is a modified stem or branch, built from an axillary bud and tied into the plant's vascular system. A rose's armature begins nearer the surface, where epidermal and cortical tissues push outward, then harden. Its proper name is prickle.That distinction is...More