Types of wild rose for the garden

Chapter 5 (extract 2) of "Roses for English Gardens" by Jekyll and Mawley (1902), in which Miss Jekyll lists the garden-worthy wild roses.

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Illustration: Rosa arvensis

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There are, of course, a great many species of Roses, and numbers of them are only plants for botanical collections. Only those that concern the garden in the type form, and those that are the parents of garden varieties, are here named and briefly described.

• Rosa acicularis — A Rose with bright pink bloom and glaucous foliage; a native of Siberia; it is pretty and interesting, flowering at the end of May.
• R. alba — Not considered a real species though the name is usually admitted in botanical classification. Semi-double white, with handsome bluish leaves. The double White Rose of cottage gardens, Maiden's Blush and Celeste are among its garden varieties.
• R. alpina — A native of Europe and parent of the Boursault Roses. The mature stems are red and without prickles. The bright red hips are very long in shape.
• R. altaica — The representative of our native Burnet Rose (R. spinosissima) in Northern Central Asia. A beautiful garden bush with lemon-white flowers.
• R. arvensis — One of our own hedge Roses; a large single bloomed variety of extra rambling habit and some half double ones are good garden plants.
• R. Banksiae — A rambling Chinese Rose without prickles, best known in England by the double yellow form.
• R. beggeriana — From Central Asia; a bush with small glabrous leaves and small, white, unpleasant-smelling flowers; an interesting kind though not showy.
• R. blanda — North American. Called also the Hudson's Bay or Labrador Rose; a good-sized bush with large pink flowers.
• R. bracteata — From China. The Macartney Rose, with large white blooms and handsome poUshed leaves. There is also a double variety called Marie Leonide which is stronger growing than the type.
• R. Carolina — A North American species, not of the first importance, and yet of some value in that it blooms in late summer and autumn.
• R. centifolia — The type of the Cabbage or Provence Roses, of the Moss Roses and the small de Meaux.
• R. cinnamomea — The double form is the Cinnamon Rose of our older gardens. The flowers are rather few, pink or pale rose, and flattened.
• R. clynophylla — A white-flowered trailing Rose of scrambling habit; scarcely suitable for a garden, but good for a wild place.
• R. damascena — (Damask). A good old garden Rose of oriental origin, with several varieties, red, white and striped.
• R. Ecae — A tender Rose from Abyssinia, with yellow flowers the size of a shilling. It does well occasionally in the south of England.
• R. gallica — The type of most of the older garden Roses. This and the Damask Rose are no doubt the ancestors of the modern Hybrid Perpetuals. Pretty bushes in many varieties.
• R. humilis.—A white Rose. R. humilis rugosa is an excellent bush garden Rose with pink flowers.
• R. indica — The type of the China Rose, but there are other forms of R. indica that are apparently the types of some of the Teas.
• R. laevigata — A native of China; it makes a good pillar or climbing Rose in the south of England, though it is better in France. It has shining leaves and large white flowers.
• R. lucida — A well-known garden Rose from North America, with shining leaves and rose-coloured flowers. It grows into bushy masses. The double variety, though not common, is very beautiful.
• R. lutea — An oriental yellow Brier, the origin of the double Persian yellow, and of the Austrian Copper.
• R. macrantha — Single large rose coloured; a wild hybrid of canina and gallica.
• R. macrophylla — A handsome, tall growing Rose with many large, full-pink flowers. It makes a good pillar Rose and deserves to be more generally planted.
• R. microphylla — A Chinese Rose with buff-coloured wood and straight, sharp, gooseberry-like prickles. The bud is curious from the prickly calyx. The double variety is a handsome flat flower, light pink, with crimson centre.
• R. mollis pomifera — The Apple-bearing Rose of older gardens. The foliage is soft and bluish, the flowers pink and the hips large and handsome.
• R. moschata = R. Brunoni — A rambling Himalayan Rose of great beauty, bearing a quantity of clustered white bloom and having graceful bluish foliage. Best used to ramble through trees and bushes.
• R. multifiora = polyantha — Of eastern Asiatic origin. It makes large bushy brakes by itself and is the parent of many of our best rambling Roses.
• R. omissa — An erect bush with pink flowers and grey, softly pubescent leaves. A pretty and interesting Rose.
• R. pisocarpa — A rather straggling Californian bush, flowering in corymbs. The leaves are glabrous and the flowers pink or red.
• R. Pissardi — A handsome Persian Rose with white bloom.
• R. rubiginosa — The native Sweet-brier. In the type form an indispensable Rose. The beautiful Penzance hybrids derived from it should be in every garden.
• R. rugosa — The Japanese Ramanas Rose. One of the hardiest of Roses. There are good garden forms and hybrids. The hips are the showiest of any known Rose.
• R. rubrifolia — An European Rose with small red flowers and red stems and leaves; very near R. alpina.
• R. sempervirens — A wild Italian Rose, the parent of many of our older cluster and rambling Roses. The leaves are small and polished and endure through the greater part of the winter.
• R. setigera — The latest to bloom of the wild Roses. From North America. Flowers magenta-rose. It makes a good pillar Rose.
• R. simplicifolia = berberifolia — A small and tender yellow Rose, requiring a sheltered place against a warm wall.
• R. spinosissima — The native Burnet Rose, type of the well known Scotch Briers.
• R. wichuriana — A trailing Japanese species with small, polished, deep green leaves and white flowers. Beautiful hybrids are now being derived from it.

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LINK: The origin of Garden roses from wild species