Those Were Not Mullable Roses

Multiflora Rose—By Σ64 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

There is no such thing as a mullable rose.

And yet there is because that’s what Grandma called them and I had seen them. They had to exist. I really doubted Grandma had discovered a new plant.

Years later I discovered a reference to something referred to as the multiflora rose. Based upon the discussion and the description, I thought it was odd that I had never heard of the plant before.

And then I saw the picture. There was Grandma’s mullable rose.

The word was not “mullable.” It was “multiflora.

Maybe I heard Grandma wrong. Maybe Grandma said it wrong. Maybe Grandma heard it wrong. Maybe all three.

When you can’t find that maiden name that Grandma insists is true consider how off the pronunciation may be.