Until now, we never really understood what all the fuss was about roses. Women seem to love them, and men seem to spend inordinate amounts of money to purchase them for their sweethearts. But now that 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.

Source: Karapaia