No rose without thorns for Morocco’s hardworking flower pickers

To earn a living, rose pickers in Morocco's Atlas Mountains must wake up from the crack of dawn to collect flowers before the sunshine damages the shocking pink petals -- eventually distilled into precious oil costing once processed $18,000 per kilo. The heady aroma of the Rosa Damascena, a variety introduced in the days of the caravan trade, perfumes hedges and fields irrigated by two wadis between the mountains and the Sahara desert.