A rose is una rosa

Buying or sending roses for Valentine's? Chances are they came from Colombia. Three out of every 4 roses in America originate from the greenhouses of Colombia's Andean plateau, with each rose averaging out to somewhere between $3 and $4, almost entirely in transport and retail mark-up.

Strangely, this is not widely known (to wit: today's Times op-ed on flowers with no mention of Colombia), despite some staggering figures:

• 2 billion stems of Colombian flowers sold for Valentine's day alone
  
• $900 million in export sales in 2005 for Colombian growers
• 98% of the chrysanthemums and 90% of the carnations bought in the U.S. and Canada are Colombian

This from an industry not yet in its fourth decade.

So if you look at Manhattan delis and see rows of flowers arrayed under a plastic awning outside, you are looking at almost purely Colombian product (with the rest likely supplied by Ecuador).