A rose is a rose is a target of vandalism.

One or more hooligans cut down 32 rose plants in Golden Gate Park, leaving behind all the trimmings, including the blooms.

The Rose Garden destruction, found by a dog walker early Thursday morning, has left park officials baffled and wondering if the work was that of a serial flora killer in San Francisco's most famous park.

The discovery came after nearly four dozen trees have been deliberately destroyed in Golden Gate Park and Lincoln Park since May.

Officials don't know if the tree and rose incidents are connected, but they haven't discounted a link.

"We're definitely troubled by it," Elton Pon, spokesman for the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, said Friday.

Authorities have no suspects. A $2,000 reward has been posted for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the tree slayer. Officials are considering extending the offer in an attempt to catch the rose butcher.

In all, 32 hybrid tea rose plants in three adjacent beds were severed, said Michael McGoldrick, the gardener assigned to the Rose Garden. The plants, which were in full bloom, were well-established, probably 15 to 20 years old. Some plants were cut nearly to the ground.

For the most part, he said, the cuts were clean, probably the work of someone using loppers or hand shears.

"Unfortunately," said Charles Dowling, who serves on the San Francisco Rose Society board, whose members volunteer to help tend the public beds, "a lot of the cuts were in the wrong place. This was not pruning we're talking about. This was destruction."

Dowling, who has surveyed the damage firsthand, said the plants probably will survive, but only time will tell.

He said his heart fell and his anger rose when he saw what had happened. "This was deliberate and malicious," he said. "I'm just glad they stopped at three beds."

3 varieties struck

The Rose Garden, on the north side of the park, is located between John F. Kennedy Drive and Fulton Street, just east of Park Presidio Boulevard. There are more than 60 English-style beds in the fragrant garden, with roses of all colors.

The vandal - or vandals - struck three varieties: Perfect Moment, Broadway and White Delight. The gardeners planted a stake in the middle bed with a hand-lettered sign that says, "Roses have been vandalized."

Occasionally, individual flowers in the Rose Garden are stolen, but park gardeners don't remember something on this scale - or done for seemingly no other purpose than to do harm.

Pon said park rangers and city police will step up patrols, but there are no plans to set up surveillance cameras. Between the damaged trees and roses, the locations have been scattered. "Golden Gate Park alone is 1,017 acres," he said.

Tucked away from streets

McGoldrick, summoned to the scene by colleagues who got there first, said that given the amount of cutting, the misdeed may have taken an hour to complete.

He and others speculate that the damage occurred Wednesday night.

There are no lights in the garden, which is tucked away from the busy streets and pathways.

"The Rose Garden is something for everybody to enjoy," McGoldrick said. "What happened was a shock, a real shame."