Old Garden roses - The damask rose

Chapter 2 (extract 2) of "Roses for English gardens" by Jekyll and Mawley (1902), in which Miss Jekyll talks of damasks.

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Near the Provence Rose, in sentiment as well as in a sort of natural garden classification, comes the Damask, charming also with its delicious though fainter scent and its wide-open crimson flowers.

The Damask Rose, with some of the older Gallicas, may be considered the ancestors of many of our modern Roses, and though there is no record of the earlier pedigrees, those who are old enough to remember some of the first Hybrid Perpetuals will retain the recollection of some Roses such as Lee's Perpetual in which such parentage, probably passing through a Portland Rose, of which group there are a few named kinds, is fairly traceable. The particoloured form is a charming bush Rose that should be much more used; it is known by the names Rosa Mundi, Cottage Maid, and York and Lancaster.

The latter name is also claimed for another striped Rose of much less value, but the name is so pretty and the Rose so charming that most of us think they ought to belong to each other, and that there is at least no harm in their association for general use.

The newly found but really old garden Rose now called Hebe's Lip, otherwise Reine Blanche, seems to belong to the Provins group (gallica). There were formerly in old gardens some very dark-coloured Damask Roses called Velvet Roses, that are either lost or have become rare, as they are now seldom seen.

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See also:

Old Garden Rose - The cabbage or Provence Rose (Rosa centifolia) and the Provins rose (Rosa gallica)

Old Garden Roses - Rosa cinnamomea (the Whitsuntide rose) and Rosa rubiginosa (the old sweet brier)

Old Garden Roses - Rosa alba

Old Garden Roses - Rosa alpina and Rosa arvensis

Old Garden Roses - the Banksian Roses and the China Roses

Old Garden Roses - Fortune's Yellow and certain other old roses

A list of the best Old Garden Roses