- "This plant was my connection to my mama. Then it turned out to be more than a plant. It's a Desert Rose from Coryana, probably snuck over to the states by an islander named Ocean, who eventually gave it to my ex for safekeeping, who then gave it to me, having no idea that its serum was actually a miracle cure."
- —Ryan Wilder[src]
The Desert Rose is a rare, mysterious flower from the island of Coryana. It is a universal-panacea, granting the user perfect recovery from all illness, poisoning, and injury.
History[]
Many years ago, a group of women from a European village attempted to escape from their abusive households and sought shelter on an island. However, the women's husbands tracked them down and attempted to bring them home by force, only to be confronted by a group of female warriors. A great battle ensued that caused many casualties, but the blood sustained from the female warriors grew a rose-bush plant throughout the soils of the island that later became known as Coryana. The plant became known as the Desert Rose. It was believed that only a woman's essence would grow the plant since it could cure any illness or poison.[1]
The queen of Coryana, Safiyah Sohail, enacted a rule that the plant was not to be exported from the island because she observed that man is careless with natural resources and she did not want her island or the Desert Rose destroyed wantonly. However, Ocean violated the rule as he and Beth Kane planned to leave Coryana with the plant. As punishment, Safiyah had the couple's memories of their time together on the island wiped.
Beth secured a flower, which she kept from her time in Coryana years ago[2], which she offered as an antidote to the poison she administered to Mary Hamilton and her mother, Catherine, pouring it into a cup of tea. Catherine persuaded Mary to drink the antidote, saving her life.[3]
The panacea persisted in Mary's blood for a while. It was also used by Kate Kane to save the life of a doppelgänger of Alice.[4]
Later, Nocturna was informed about the Desert Rose by Alice and kidnapped Mary to heal her porphyria, but her plan was foiled by Batwoman and Alice herself. Soon after, Mary analyzed her blood and found nothing abnormal.[5]
At some point, Alice had saved a unit of Mary's blood which still had the Desert Rose drug in it. After releasing a swarm of bats (which were infected with the same toxin that had killed Catherine) onto the city (drawn to a rally, where the the citizens of Gotham gathered to demand Batwoman's return, by a device releasing sonar that attracted the colony), Alice gave Mary a pouch of the latter's blood, which Mary then gave to Hamilton Dynamics to mass-produce the antidote in an effort to save the city.[6]
Angered that the panacea was exported from the island, Safiyah hired Victor Zsasz to kill the person who distributed it, making Mary a target, but Victor was foiled by Batwoman.
Meanwhile, a bite victim who had stage four cancer was completely healed by the Desert Rose to a point where medically it appeared that she never had cancer.[2]
Ryan finds the Desert Roses.
After Beth learned that Safiyah had lied to her about the former's missing sister, Kate Kane, being on Coryana, she burned all of Safiyah's roses growing on the island. However, when Mary and Luke wound up fighting to defend themselves against one of Safiyah's assassins who attacked the duo back at Wayne Enterprises, the blood of Dire-Flail, whom Julia Pennyworth wound up killing, got on Ryan's plant, which she'd entrusted to Mary for its care. A short time later, due to exposure to the blood, Ryan's potted plant blossomed with a Desert Rose,[7] though Ryan hadn't known the true nature of her plant prior to that occurrence.
Ryan took the blossom from its pot and planted it in the Batcave.[8]
Mary, using the Desert Rose planted in the Batcave, concocted a solution to save Luke Fox's life after the latter was shot and fell into a coma. She then gave the solution to Wolf Spider, who injected it into Luke's body.[9]
Batwoman removed the Desert Rose plant from the Batcave and took it to Safiyah Sohail in exchange for Alice's freedom; Safiyah accepted the trade.[10]
Alice "killed" Safiyah before she could regrow her island, leaving the current fate of the Desert Rose unknown. However, it is likely that Alice collected the flower off of Safiyah's corpse, considering that she relocated her body and stole her other possessions. It's unclear if the Desert Rose was returned to Ryan or not.
Characteristics[]
Said and considered to be an actual panacea, or universal cure-all, for good reason chiefly by individuals aware of the flower's existence and those who medically benefitted from it even just once, the Desert Roses of Coryana are a naturally-growing healing agent and one of the most potent in nature, with borderline otherworldly if not miraculous recuperative properties that, if allowed to be widely distributed and marketized outside of Coryana's borders may completely revolutionize modern medicine at the cost of exposing the island and betraying its secrecy to the rest of the world.
Alice once claimed that the rose has envenomed thorns that promise a quick death to whomsoever they prick. This is why the flora must be delicately handled, especially in a bid to draw out the precious serum found only in its petals to be soon refined and concentrated for later. However, with the rose's precious extract only procurable from a fully-matured bud, the flowers growing on a Desert Rose stem or bush first needs to bloom, marking the time that its healing power may then be conferred to a live organism; thus, the only known way for the plant to completely bloom is by introducing it to the blood of a female since the one that Angelique Martin gave to Ryan never reached complete maturity, until it was accidentally exposed to the blood of a woman assassin during a confrontation at Wayne Tower.
Thus, the salubrious flower extract was observed able to remedy a wide-range of disease and injury sustained by the recipient, absolving such within moments and was seen curing victims of a little-known and deadly neurotoxin developed by Hamilton Dynamics and even an ailment of extra-terrestrial origin, such as Kryptonite poisoning. The healing phenomena persist for a short while after, which was how victims of Alice's envenomed bats were not only cured of the toxin she used, but also restored recipients to full health reversing any other malady they already harbored from prior to the bats' attack. It is also shown able to near-instantly mend wounds.
In Coryana, this even engendered a way of faking death by forging a blade in Desert Rose extract creating a weapon that ironically only heals as much as it cuts. Stabbing the heart with such a sharp implement, however, would result in the victim's faux demise and making them appear convincingly and clinically dead. That is until the blade used to "kill" them is removed and permitting the lingering essence to heal the felled party almost immediately after removal. It would seem that the existence of such a blade is kept secret even in the well-hidden island since Tatiana, Safiyah's most trusted subordinate, wasn't even aware of such an implement until she witnessed Safiyah revive Ocean after pulling said dagger out of him.
The rose's only known limit is that it cannot bring back the dead, as seen when it failed to revive a corpse that Alice brought back to Coryana, disguised as Ocean, with a Desert Rose-imbued dagger embedded into its heart.
Appearances[]
Batwoman[]
Season 1Season 2
Season 3
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Trivia[]
- The Desert Rose seemingly does not require sunlight to survive, as Ryan Wilder had planted one in the Batcave; which is deprived of sunlight.
- In "How Does Your Garden Grow?", it is revealed that; the Batcave does in fact receive a limited amount of sunlight; during specific times of the day; but the tunnels deep below the Batcave are completely deprived of sunlight.
- As of "Survived Much Worse", Ryan's desert rose is the only one that; is left in existence, as all the other desert roses on Coryana were destroyed; by Beth Kane.
Behind the scenes[]
- In the DC comics, the Desert Rose is a location within the island of Coryana.