Purple Rose Meaning by Shade: What Florists Say, and the Lavender Hybrid Tea Patented in 1955
Purple rose meaning by shade: florists say lavender is love at first sight, deep purple devotion. No 1884 dictionary entry; a 1955 patent describes lavender.
In short
- Purple rose meaning: florist guides say enchantment; lavender is read as love at first sight, deep purple as devotion and lasting love.
- The 1884 flower dictionary we read lists no purple rose.
- A 1955 US plant patent describes a hybrid tea of “true lavender color.”
- Checked against: the 1884 Language of Flowers, US Patent PP 1,433, HelpMeFind, RHS, Illinois Extension.
Purple rose meaning, in the florist tradition, is enchantment. Pale lavender roses are read as love at first sight, and deeper purples as royalty, devotion and lasting love. We found these readings in modern florist writing and not in the Victorian flower dictionaries we searched: the 1884 Language of Flowers we read lists no purple, lavender or mauve rose. Florist guides link the royal reading to the historic cost of purple dye, and the lavender hybrid tea has a dated record of its own: a 1955 US plant patent that HelpMeFind links to the rose ‘Sterling Silver’. This guide keeps those threads apart, so you can see which meaning rests on which source. For every colour, see our rose meaning by colour page, and for the wider system, the flower symbolism guide.
What does a purple rose mean?
A purple rose means enchantment in the florist tradition. Illinois Extension’s 2014 handout on the meaning of flowers, written by retired horticulture educator Rhonda Ferree, lists “Purple – Enchantment” among the rose colours, beside “Red – Love” and “Pink – Grace, Admiration.” Four florist guides name the same reading: Odeala Rose, Flower Glossary, Bloomsy Box and BearloonSG.
The reading is a convention, not a botanical fact. The Smithsonian Gardens lesson plan on Victorian flower books says the guidebook authors used “visual and verbal analogies, religious and literary sources, folkloric connections, and botanical attributes” to derive their associations. It adds that “Flowers also varied based on their colors,” and its own colour example is a purple violet, which meant that the giver’s “thoughts were occupied with love.” For the neighbouring shades, see our red rose, pink rose and white rose meaning pages.
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Purple rose meaning by shade: lavender, purple and deep purple
Florist guides split purple roses by depth of colour: lavender for a new attraction, deep purple for devotion and lasting love. The table below compares five guides, the four named above plus Little Flower Hut (2019).
| Shade | What the guides say | Where they differ |
|---|---|---|
| Lavender (pale purple) | Enchantment (all five guides) and “love at first sight”: Bloomsy Box, BearloonSG and Little Flower Hut name it for lavender outright, and Flower Glossary says “the lighter shades are associated with” it. Odeala Rose gives that phrase to purple in general and ties lavender to “the thrill of a new attraction” | Little Flower Hut also lists “caution, modesty and discretion,” tied to the colour of Lenten vestments, and “mature femininity, grace, elegance, and sophistication” |
| Purple (mauve to violet) | Enchantment, majesty and royalty (Bloomsy Box, Flower Glossary, BearloonSG) | No guide gives “mauve” a meaning of its own |
| Deep purple (plum, eggplant) | Depth, devotion and lasting respect, with milestone anniversaries and big promotions (Odeala Rose); lasting love, with the 25th wedding anniversary named (Flower Glossary) | Emphasis: respect and milestones in Odeala Rose, long-term love in Flower Glossary |
In short, all five guides tie lavender to enchantment, four tie lavender or the lighter shades to “love at first sight,” and the deep shades carry devotion and lasting love. “Mauve” appears mainly in breeding records: the American Rose Society class “mauve or mauve blend” covers roses such as ‘Sterling Silver’, according to HelpMeFind, so it names a colour class and not a message.
Is “love at first sight” a Victorian meaning for purple roses?
No. We found the reading in modern florist writing and not in the 1884 New York flower dictionary, which has no entry for a purple, lavender or mauve rose. We searched its vocabulary of meanings, and the rose entries include “Rose, Red” (“Love”), “Rose, Single” (“Simplicity”) and “Rosebud, Moss” (“Confession of love”), with none purple. Kate Greenaway’s illustrated dictionary, in its Project Gutenberg text, has the same gap. Odeala Rose writes that the enchantment reading “dates back to Victorian times” but names no book, and in the two dictionary texts we searched, the entry is not there.
Three nearby entries exist, all for other plants or for a thornless rose. The 1884 dictionary gives “Lilac, Purple” the meaning “First emotions of love,” “Rose, Thornless” the meaning “Early attachment,” and lavender the herb the meaning “Distrust.” Our lavender meaning guide covers that plant.
Two guides add a thorn rule. Flower Glossary says a lavender rose with “zero thorns” stands for love at first sight, and Little Flower Hut says that if “the bristles or thorns are removed, it shows that love was experienced at first sight.” Three records mention thornless or nearly thornless roses. The 1884 dictionary has “Rose, Thornless,” and ‘Sterling Silver’ is listed by Rogue Valley Roses as “Thornless or Nearly Thornless,” while its patent says “Very few thorns present on stem.” We found no source that links these records to the thorn rule, so the rule stays florist custom. If you want to read the dictionaries yourself, reprints of Greenaway’s book are easy to find (affiliate link).
Purple rose meaning in a relationship, friendship, spiritual use and tattoos
In a relationship a purple rose means a new attraction (lavender) or lasting love (deep purple), and in friendship BearloonSG gives lavender a meaning of its own. The table sets out each setting with its source.
| Setting | What the sources say | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Relationship | Lavender: a new attraction and a first-date gift (Odeala Rose), “love at first sight” (four guides, for lavender or the lighter shades). Deep purple: “golden anniversaries” (Odeala Rose); long-term love and the 25th wedding anniversary (Flower Glossary) | Florist custom (Odeala Rose, Flower Glossary, BearloonSG, Bloomsy Box, Little Flower Hut); no dated text |
| Friendship | BearloonSG says light purple “conveys deep appreciation and adoration for a highly valued friendship.” Little Flower Hut says people have used lavender roses “to say Thank you to a spouse, family member, or even friend.” Odeala Rose and Flower Glossary state no friendship meaning | Florist custom for lavender only; one guide gives it a heading of its own |
| Spiritual use | Odeala Rose ties purple to the crown chakra, “the energy center of enlightenment,” and lists ceremonies and altar flowers | Tradition reported by one florist; no scripture or dated text cited |
| Catholic use | Little Flower Hut ties lavender roses to Lent, writing that “Roman Catholic priests wore the colour during lent.” EWTN says violet or purple vestments mark Advent and Lent as “a sign of penance, sacrifice and preparation” | An inference from a liturgical colour; we found no church text that gives a purple rose a meaning |
| Tattoo | Light purple tending to lavender: love at first sight. Dark purple: lasting love, sophistication and luxury (Tatuantes) | One tattoo site, which matches the florist guides and cites no source |
The relationship and tattoo rows agree because they repeat one florist convention. The friendship, spiritual and Catholic rows show where the meaning is thin or inferred, so a card with your own message does that job better than the flower.
Why purple means royalty: from Tyrian dye to Perkin’s mauve
Purple came to mean royalty because the dye was scarce and costly. Tyrian purple, extracted from murex shellfish, was first produced by the Phoenician city of Tyre in the Bronze Age, according to the World History Encyclopedia. The same article reports that texts from Ugarit and Hittite sources indicate manufacture began in the 14th century BCE.
The cost explains the status. Historian B. Caseau, quoted there, states that “10,000 shellfish would produce 1 gram of dyestuff, and that would only dye the hem of a garment in a deep colour.” Diocletian’s price edict of 301 CE put one pound of purple dye at 150,000 denarii, around three pounds of gold.
Rome turned the colour into rank. The imperial family, magistrates and some elites could wear the toga praetexta with a purple border, and generals celebrating a Triumph the toga picta, entirely purple with a gold border. Julius Caesar was the first to wear the all-purple toga purpurea, and in time purple came to represent the emperor.
Synthetic purple arrived in 1856. During an Easter vacation, 18-year-old William Henry Perkin synthesized mauve, or aniline purple, from coal-tar chemicals while trying to make quinine, and the Science History Institute calls it the first commercialized synthetic dyestuff. Perkin opened his factory at Greenford Green in 1857.
Florist guides carry this history into the vase. Odeala Rose writes that “from emperors in Rome to queens in Byzantium, purple has long signified power,” and BearloonSG says purple dye “was historically rare and expensive.” Neither names a historical text that applies the royal reading to roses, so we read it as an inherited colour association and not a rose-specific tradition.
How the purple rose was bred: from ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’ to ‘Sterling Silver’ and ‘Blue Moon’
Garden roses lack delphinidin, the pigment usually behind violet and blue flowers. Katsumoto and colleagues, writing in Plant and Cell Physiology in 2007, state that “Rosa hybrida lacks violet to blue flower varieties due to the absence of delphinidin-based anthocyanins,” because roses lack the enzyme F3′5′H. A 2013 review adds that roses also tend to have a lower vacuolar pH. The three major anthocyanidins found in roses are pelargonidin, cyanidin and peonidin, according to the introduction of a 2019 study of rose cultivars. The Katsumoto abstract concerns the garden rose, Rosa hybrida, and this page makes no claim about wild species.
Purple-toned garden roses are older than the hybrid tea. HelpMeFind records ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’, a gallica bred by Louis-Joseph-Ghislain Parmentier in Belgium before 1847, as “mauve or purple blend,” and the RHS calls it “deep wine-purple” and dates it c. 1840. ‘Reine des Violettes’ (Mille-Mallet, France, 1860) is “violet” on HelpMeFind and “pale purple and lilac” on the RHS, so the two sources differ on its colour. ‘Veilchenblau’, a rambler bred by J. C. Schmidt in Germany before 1909, is violet on HelpMeFind and “purple-violet” fading to “greyish-lilac” on the RHS. Colour words are not standardised between registries and gardens.
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→ View My Garden CalendarThat record corrects a claim in circulation. Tatuantes says purple roses have been cultivated only since the late 19th century and were made by mixing roses of other colours, such as yellow and orange. The tattoo guide cites no source, and the earliest records above are older.
The lavender hybrid tea has its own dated record. Esther Gladys Fisher of Woburn, Massachusetts, filed US plant patent PP 1,433 on 28 January 1955, and it was published on 8 November 1955. The patent describes a hybrid tea “being a combination of a strong-growing plant and a flower of a color new to roses and with intense fragrance,” with a “flower of true lavender color.” HelpMeFind links the patent to ‘Sterling Silver’, registered as “hybrid tea, Fisher 1955” and introduced in the United States by Jackson & Perkins of Newark, New York, in 1957. The patent text does not print the name ‘Sterling Silver’.
The American Rose Society classes ‘Sterling Silver’ as a “mauve or mauve blend” hybrid tea, according to HelpMeFind. HelpMeFind describes the bloom as lilac, ageing to lighter, with a strong citrus, fruity, sweet fragrance, and gives USDA zone 7b and warmer with spring freeze protection. Rogue Valley Roses calls it the “forerunner of the modern lavender Hybrid Teas” and says it needs “a lot of TLC in the first two or three years.”
The records disagree on which parent was Peace. The patent states that “its male parent was the variety Peace” and that the female parent was an unnamed seedling. A 1956 article by Fisher in the Telegraph Delivery Spirit, as quoted on HelpMeFind, says Peace “is the female parent of ‘Sterling Silver.'”
‘Blue Moon’ carries the line forward. Mathias Tantau Jr. bred it in Germany before 1964, and HelpMeFind lists it as a seedling of ‘Sterling Silver’ crossed with an unnamed seedling. It reached France in 1964 as ‘Sissi’ and Australia in 1965 as ‘Blue Moon’, and HelpMeFind describes the bloom as lilac.
A bluer rose needed genetic engineering. Katsumoto’s team added a viola gene for delphinidin, and reported flowers with “blue hues not achieved by hybridization breeding.” A 2009 review reports that one of the resulting lines was launched in Japan in late 2009 as the Suntory blue rose ‘Applause’. The table lists the dates in order.
| Date | Rose or event | Record |
|---|---|---|
| c. 1840 to before 1847 | ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’ (gallica) | RHS: c. 1840; HelpMeFind: Parmentier, before 1847 |
| 1860 | ‘Reine des Violettes’ (hybrid perpetual) | HelpMeFind: Mille-Mallet, France |
| Before 1909 | ‘Veilchenblau’ (rambler) | HelpMeFind: J. C. Schmidt, Germany |
| 28 Jan and 8 Nov 1955 | Plant patent PP 1,433 filed and published | Google Patents: Fisher, “true lavender color” |
| 1957 | ‘Sterling Silver’ introduced in the US | HelpMeFind: Jackson & Perkins |
| Before 1964 to 1965 | ‘Blue Moon’ bred; ‘Sissi’ in France 1964, ‘Blue Moon’ in Australia 1965 | HelpMeFind: Tantau Jr. |
| Late 2009 | ‘Applause’, genetically engineered blue rose, launched in Japan | Tanaka, Brugliera and Chandler 2009 |
Which purple rose should you give, and which should you grow?
Give lavender for a new attraction and deep purple for respect, milestones or a long marriage; grow the rose that survives your winter. These lines follow the florist guides above, which are custom, not rules:
- If you have just met someone, choose lavender, which the guides read as enchantment and, in four of them, love at first sight for lavender or the lighter shades.
- If you are marking an achievement, choose deep purple, which Odeala Rose ties to respect, milestones and big promotions.
- If it is a long marriage, choose deep purple, since Flower Glossary names the 25th wedding anniversary.
- If it is a friend, add a card, because BearloonSG gives lavender a friendship meaning (appreciation of a valued friendship), Little Flower Hut lists friends among thank-you recipients, and Odeala Rose and Flower Glossary state none.
For other roses and flowers that say love, see our guide to flowers that mean love.
Growing a purple rose depends on class and climate before colour. The table lists six roses with dated records, using the HelpMeFind and RHS entries read for this page.
| Rose | Class, breeder and date | Colour on record | Hardiness and watch-outs |
|---|---|---|---|
| ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’ | Gallica; Parmentier, before 1847 | “Deep wine-purple” (RHS); “mauve or purple blend” (HelpMeFind) | RHS H6; USDA 4b to 8b; once-flowering, about 1.2 m, almost thornless |
| ‘Reine des Violettes’ | Hybrid perpetual; Mille-Mallet, 1860 | “Pale purple and lilac” (RHS); “violet” (HelpMeFind) | USDA 4b to 9b; almost thornless, RHS: to 1.5 m; HelpMeFind: “Feed this rose well” |
| ‘Veilchenblau’ | Rambler; J. C. Schmidt, before 1909 | “Purple-violet” fading to “greyish-lilac” (RHS) | RHS H7; USDA 4b and warmer; once-flowering, about 4.5 m; sun or partial shade |
| ‘Sterling Silver’ | Hybrid tea; Fisher, registered 1955, introduced 1957 | Lilac, ageing to lighter (HelpMeFind) | USDA 7b and warmer; needs spring freeze protection |
| ‘Blue Moon’ | Hybrid tea; Tantau Jr., before 1964 | Lilac (HelpMeFind) | USDA 7b and warmer; prefers warmer sites; needs spring freeze protection |
| ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ | Shrub; Cowlishaw, introduced in the UK in 2000 | Opens plum purple, fades to slate blue (HelpMeFind) | USDA 6b to 9b; prefers cool sites; susceptible to blackspot |
Choose by hardiness first, then by colour. ‘Sterling Silver’ and ‘Blue Moon’ are listed for zone 7b and warmer, while HelpMeFind lists ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’, ‘Reine des Violettes’ and ‘Veilchenblau’ for zone 4b, and the RHS rates ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’ H6 and ‘Veilchenblau’ H7.
Whichever you pick, a purple rose grows like any other rose of its class. Our rose care guide covers planting, pruning, feeding and disease from the first spring onward, and a sharp pair of bypass pruners such as the Felco F-2 makes the cuts clean. That is an affiliate link: if you buy through it we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Frequently asked questions
What does a purple rose mean?
In florist guides it means enchantment, with lavender shades read as love at first sight and deeper purples as royalty, devotion and lasting love. The 1884 flower dictionary we read has no purple rose.
What does a lavender rose mean?
All five guides we compared tie it to enchantment, and four tie lavender or the lighter shades to love at first sight. Little Flower Hut also lists caution, modesty and discretion, linked to Lenten vestments.
What does a dark purple rose mean?
Odeala Rose gives depth, devotion and lasting respect, and Flower Glossary gives lasting love. Flower Glossary and the tattoo guide both set it against the lighter shades’ love at first sight.
Do purple roses occur naturally?
This page covers garden roses only. Purple-toned garden roses were bred before 1847, such as ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’, although garden roses lack delphinidin, the pigment usually behind violet and blue flowers. We found no source on wild species, so this page makes no claim about them.
Is there a true blue rose?
Not from breeding alone. Katsumoto and colleagues reported flowers with “blue hues not achieved by hybridization breeding” after adding a viola gene, and a 2009 review describes the lines as “a significantly bluer hue than any conventionally bred cultivar.” The engineered rose ‘Applause’ launched in Japan in late 2009.
What does a purple rose mean in the Catholic Church?
One florist guide, Little Flower Hut, ties lavender roses to Lent because priests wore the colour then; we found no church text that gives a purple rose a meaning. EWTN says violet or purple vestments are used in Advent and Lent as a sign of penance, sacrifice and preparation.
Sources
- The Language of Flowers, including Floral Poetry. R. Worthington, New York, 1884. Internet Archive full text (linked in text)
- United States Patent Office. Plant Patent 1,433, Rose Plant (Esther Gladys Fisher), published 8 November 1955. Google Patents (linked in text)
- HelpMeFind. ‘Sterling Silver’ rose (linked in text)
- Ferree, Rhonda. The Meaning of Flowers. Illinois Extension, 10 January 2014 (linked in text)
- Odeala Rose. Purple Roses Meaning: Unveiling the Symbolism, Shades, and Occasions, 18 July 2025 (linked in text)
- Flower Glossary. The Meaning of Purple Roses (linked in text)
- Bloomsy Box. The Complete Guide to Rose Color Meanings (linked in text)
- BearloonSG. Lavender Roses Meaning: Enchantment, Romance And Royalty, 13 April 2026 (linked in text)
- Smithsonian Gardens. The Language of Flowers, historic bloom lesson plan (linked in text)
- Little Flower Hut. The Meaning of Lavender Roses, 28 March 2019 (linked in text)
- Greenaway, Kate. Language of Flowers. George Routledge and Sons. Project Gutenberg eBook 31591 (linked in text)
- Rogue Valley Roses. Sterling Silver (linked in text)
- Cartwright, Mark. Tyrian Purple: The Super-Expensive Dye of Antiquity. World History Encyclopedia, 21 July 2016 (linked in text)
- Science History Institute. William Henry Perkin (linked in text)
- EWTN. The Color of Liturgical Vestments (linked in text)
- Tatuantes. Purple rose tattoos, the meaning of this beautiful flower (linked in text)
- Katsumoto, Y. et al. Engineering of the rose flavonoid biosynthetic pathway successfully generated blue-hued flowers accumulating delphinidin. Plant and Cell Physiology 48(11):1589–1600, 2007 (linked in text)
- Tanaka, Y. and Brugliera, F. Flower colour and cytochromes P450. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 368:20120432, 2013 (linked in text)
- Frontiers in Plant Science 10:123, 2019. Determination of Flavonoids and Carotenoids and Their Contributions to Various Colors of Rose Cultivars (Rosa spp.) (linked in text)
- Tanaka, Y., Brugliera, F. and Chandler, S. Recent progress of flower colour modification by biotechnology. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 10(12):5350–5369, 2009 (linked in text)
- HelpMeFind. ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’ rose (linked in text)
- Royal Horticultural Society. Rosa ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’ (G) (linked in text)
- HelpMeFind. ‘Reine des Violettes’ rose (linked in text)
- Royal Horticultural Society. Rosa ‘Reine des Violettes’ (HP) (linked in text)
- HelpMeFind. ‘Veilchenblau’ rose (linked in text)
- Royal Horticultural Society. Rosa ‘Veilchenblau’ (Ra) (linked in text)
- HelpMeFind. ‘Blue Moon’ rose (linked in text)
- HelpMeFind. ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ rose (registered as FRAntasia) (linked in text)
