Black Rose - Turkish Halfeti
Turkish Halfeti Roses are incredibly rare. They are shaped just like regular roses, but their color sets them apart. These roses so black, you’d think someone spray-painted them. But that’s actually their natural color.
These stunning black roses would make excellent props in a movie about witches and black magic, or in a heavy-metal video. There’s something extremely attractive about them, in an intense sort of way.
Although they appear perfectly black, they’re actually a very deep crimson color. These flowers are seasonal – they only grow during the summer in small number, and only in the tiny Turkish village of Halfeti. Thanks to the unique soil conditions of the region, and the pH levels of the groundwater (that seeps in from the river Euphrates), the roses take on a devilish hue. They bloom dark red during the spring and fade to black during the summer months.The local Turks seem to enjoy a love-hate relationship with these rare blossoms. They consider the flowers to be symbols of mystery, hope and passion, and also death and bad news. Unfortunately, the black roses of Halfeti are an endangered species. They have been under threat of extinction ever since the residents of the village moved from ‘old Halfeti’ in the 1990s, when the Birecik Dam was constructed.Old Halfeti and several other villages were submerged under the waters of the Euphrates, when the dam was made. The new Halfeti village was re-built on the grounds of Karaotlak village, merely 10 kilometers from its former location. This short distance proved fatal for the beautiful black roses. The villagers replanted them in their new gardens, but the flowers didn’t take to their new environment very well. There was a steady decline in the number of black roses grown in the region.
The district officials have made efforts to save the roses. They collected seedlings from village homes and replanted them closer to their original surroundings in greenhouses. They have been doing slightly better, ever since.
Seeing a black rose in full bloom is a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing. Don’t miss it if you ever happen to be in Turkey during the summer! We’ve seen the pitch-black Turkish Halfeti Rose, we’re starting to understand that roses can be not only dangerous, kind of smelly and enchanting all at the same time, they can also be the perfect centerpiece of the most hardcore heavy metal album or low fantasy book cover of all time.
These roses, which appear perfectly black to the naked eye, are said to grow only in small quantities and only in the tiny village of Halfeti, Turkey. The unique soil conditions and pH levels of groundwater in the area – which seeps in from the Euphrates – create the deep crimson red color of the rose, which is, for all intents and purposes, solid black unless inspected very closely.
Exceedingly rare by virtue of its extremely limited geographical reach, the Halfeti Rose is made even more precious by the fact that they only appear black in the summer months. In other seasons, they grow with a pronounced, but still very dark, red tint.
The Turks, for their part, appear to have a sort of love-hate relationship with the rose, as it symbolizes not only mystery, hope and passion, but also (unsurprisingly) death and bad news. So, despite the flower’s extreme rarity, we can’t recommend buying one for your girlfriend unless you want her to think you plan on murdering her with black magic in the near future.
While the Turkish Halfeti Rose can only be grow in this very specific part of the world, its limited availability wasn’t immediately known until the residents of Halfeti were forced to relocate.
In the 1990s the Birecik Dam was built and by the 2000s it was filled with water. As a result of the newly constructed dam, the residents of Old Halfeti were repositioned about 10 kilometres away in what became known as the “new” Halfeti. The residents took their rose plants with them and replanted them in their new village but quickly realised that something was wrong.
The roses failed to thrive in their new location. While only a short distance from their original home, the soil in Old Halfeti had been fed by the waters of the Euphrates, which has a unique pH level. To prevent the extinction of this unique beauty, district officials collected seeds from the roses and planted them in greenhouses close to Old Halfeti. In doing so, they managed to save the striking rose.
While the rose can be grown in other regions around the world, only in Halfeti does the rose bloom in its black hue; when planted elsewhere, the rose always blooms in deep red.
Unique, intriguing and only found in one part of the world, the Turkish Halfeti Rose is truly one of a kind!
