Roses or Flowers is one of the four

playing card suit In playing cards, a suit is one of the categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several pips (symbols) showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or additionally be indicated ...

s in a deck of Swiss-suited playing cards. This suit was invented in 15th century German speaking Switzerland and is a survivor from a large pool of experimental suit signs created to replace the Latin suits. It is equivalent to the Hearts suit in

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

and French decks. It is equivalent to the

Leaves (suit), as both the roses and leaves suits have a central stem on their pip patterns so that they can make a pair with the Swiss-German Acorns (suit). It may have derived from the floral patterns on the North-Italian

Coins (suit) The suit of coins is one of the four card suits used in Latin-suited playing cards alongside Swords (suit), swords, Cups (suit), cups and Batons (suit), batons. These suits are used in Spanish-suited playing cards, Spanish, Italian playing cards ...

Characteristics

The rose is represented by a stylised yellow

flower Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

, with six leaves and an orange

pistil Gynoecium (; ; : gynoecia) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl (botany), whorl of a flower; it consists ...

. In

, the suit is called . Flowers appear as one of five suits alongside birds, deer, beasts of prey, and

wild men The wild man, wild man of the woods, woodwose or wodewose is a mythical figure and motif that appears in the art and literature of medieval Europe, comparable to the satyr or faun type in classical mythology and to '' Silvanus'', the Roman god of ...

in a deck (circa 1455) created by the Master of the Playing Cards, making it one of the first suits created via

copperplate engraving Intaglio ( ; ) is the family of printing and printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface and the incised line or sunken area holds the ink. It is the direct opposite of a relief print where the parts of the matrix that m ...

s. The flower suit features Cyclamens and

Roses A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be e ...

. The ranks appear to go from 1 to 9 with three or four court cards: King, Queen,

Ober Ober may refer to: * Ober (playing card), court card in the German and Swiss styles of playing cards * Ober, Indiana, an unincorporated community in Washington Township, Starke County * Oberek (also ''ober''), a lively Polish dance in triple metre ...

and/or Unter. As flowers were a common motif for

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

s at the time (see fleuron), it was easy to reuse existing plates to design new compositions for the different medium. Flowers appear as three out of five suits alongside hares and parrots in a deck of circular cards (circa 1500). The name of the artist is unknown, but is said to be "Master P.W." after their

monogram A monogram is a motif (visual arts), motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbo ...

. The flower suits are

Carnations ''Dianthus caryophyllus'' ( ), commonly known as carnation or clove pink, is a species of ''Dianthus'' native to the Mediterranean region. Its exact natural range is uncertain due to extensive cultivation over the last 2,000 years. Carnations ...

, Columbines, and

. The ranks go from 1 through 10 with four court cards: King, Queen, Ober, and Unter. Additionally, there are two special cards: one honoring

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

and the other is a Death card. The total number of cards is 72. Roses appear as one of four suits alongside pomegranates and the familiar

leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

and

acorns Acorns may refer to: * Plural of acorn, the nut of the oak tree * Acorns (company) Acorns is an American financial technology and financial services company. Based in Irvine, California, Acorns specializes in micro-investing and robo advice ...

in a pack of cards (circa 1523) created by

Hans Sebald Beham Sebald Beham (1500–1550) was a German painter and printmaker, mainly known for his very small engravings. Born in Nuremberg, he spent the later part of his career in Frankfurt. He was one of the most important of the "Little Masters", the group ...

. The ranks go from 2 through 10 with three court cards: King seated on a horse, Ober, and Unter.

Roman numerals Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...

are indexed at the top of the cards while

Arabic numerals The ten Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) are the most commonly used symbols for writing numbers. The term often also implies a positional notation number with a decimal base, in particular when contrasted with Roman numera ...

are indexed at the bottom. Notably, all the pip cards have a central stem and there is a

sow Sow or SOW may refer to: * Sowing, the process of planting Female animals * Badger * Bear * Guinea pig * Hedgehog * Suidae ** Wild boar ** Pig Arts, entertainment and media * Sow (band), a musical project of Anna Wildsmith * "Sow", a poem by Sy ...

on the three of acorns; which later would migrate to the deuce when the 3-rank was dropped in later packs. The standard four Swiss-German suits of

shields A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand, which may or may not be strapped to the wrist or forearm. Shields are used to intercept specific attacks, whether from close-ranged weaponry like spears or long ranged projectiles suc ...

, acorns, hawkbells and flowers were found in playing cards inside a book cover (circa 1530) made in

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

. These cards feature the distinguishing

banner A banner can be a flag or another piece of cloth bearing a symbol, logo, slogan or another message. A flag whose design is the same as the shield in a coat of arms (but usually in a square or rectangular shape) is called a banner of arms. Also, ...

replacing the 10-rank, and have the three court cards: King seated in a throne, Ober, and Unter. This Swiss-German suit system is believed to have developed earlier with the earliest example dated between 1433 and 1451, though only cards from the shields suit survived.

Cards

The following images depict the suit of Roses from an 1850 Swiss-suited pack: File:Swiss card deck - 1850 - 2 of Flowers.jpg, Deuce File:Swiss card deck - 1850 - 6 of Flowers.jpg, 6 File:Swiss card deck - 1850 - 7 of Flowers.jpg, 7 File:Swiss card deck - 1850 - 8 of Flowers.jpg, 8 File:Swiss card deck - 1850 - 9 of Flowers.jpg, 9 File:Swiss card deck - 1850 - Banner of Flowers.jpg,

Banner A banner can be a flag or another piece of cloth bearing a symbol, logo, slogan or another message. A flag whose design is the same as the shield in a coat of arms (but usually in a square or rectangular shape) is called a banner of arms. Also, ...

File:Swiss card deck - 1850 - Under of Flowers.jpg, Unter File:Swiss card deck - 1850 - Ober of Flowers.jpg,

File:Swiss card deck - 1850 - King of Flowers.jpg,

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

Coding

The roses or flowers suit is not explicitly defined in

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

. It is recommended to use stylistic fonts for regional variations of the French suits. However, fleurons can also be used in its place. For example:

Notes

References

Card suits {{card-game-stub