I don't believe an actual rose is ever mentioned specifically in William Faulkner's classic short story, "A Rose for Emily." The color of a rose is referred to twice in the final paragraphs, however.
A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color. upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table...
I believe the use of the word "rose"--universally a symbol of love--is used to symbolically illustrate the lost love that Miss Emily lived with for so long. She was a woman so desirous of love and so unable to show it. The title also seems to be a kind of final salute to Emily, a symbol of flowers for a funeral, perhaps; a need for the sweet smell of the flower in a house filled with the stench of death; or possibly even a suggestion of the various stages of blooming that the flower goes through. In the end, we find that Emily has preserved Homer's body even as it turns to dust, not unlike the manner in which a person who has received a rose preserves it for posterity.
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