Scientists grow the world's first polka dot rose

After years of patient research, scientists at Interflora's plant cultivation facility have succeeded in creating polka dot roses.

The development is a triumph in complex plant breeding and the result of a decade-long development project.

The flower cultivation team - headed by Winston Davies, a renowned authority on micro-propagation and plant biochemistry - has, in effect, developed a new plant variety, the world's first white rose with pink spots.

Prof. Davies said: "The polka dot rose - which looks both beautiful and, one might say, at the same time strangely unnatural - is the result of more than 10 years of research by the team at the Interflora plant cultivation facility.

"The key to unlocking this puzzle - how to engineer the plant's DNA to produce highly regular colouration patterns in a uniform fashion we simply don't normally see in nature - lay in using recombinant technology, in which DNA molecules from different sources were combined into one molecule to create a new set of genes.

"The result is our polka dot rose, which I think is rather pretty. My wife Annie loves it!"

The Interflora polka dot roses have been created to satisfy consumer demand. Over the years, Interflora has been contacted by a number of customers asking if it would ever be possible to buy flowers with 'artificial' patterns, often because of the desire to send flowers to someone intrigued by a particular design.

The requests did not go unnoticed and the team were happy to take up the challenge. Until now the company has kept the project under wraps, but it is now ready to unveil the bizarre but beautiful creation. The polka dot pattern reached the height of its popularity during the 1950s and 1960s and was even immortalised in song, when Brain Hyland released his Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.

The polka dot pattern has been seen in a wide variety of contexts, from clothing through to homeware, and has seen designers such as Emma Bridgewater and Cath Kidston using the pattern extensively in their collections.