Rosa x damascena, Rose of Damascus, Damask Rose

This beautiful stately rose is one of the oldest cultivated roses known. It is tall growing, 6ft, with bluish foliage and has flowers of a rich magenta red. In the original the flowers are single (or with a few extra petals). If grown on its own roots it will sucker, but not vigorously. The long blooming form of Rosa damascena ("The Quatre Saisons Rose") is to be preferred, as John Lindley noted:

"The bloom is exceedingly fragrant. R. bifera of some continental botanists is the Quatre seasons Rose of the French nurseries; and perhaps, from the long succession of its flowers, the most esteemed of all the varieties. Immense numbers in pots are sold weekly in the flower markets in Paris. I perceive no character to distinguish it, even as a variety, from the more common state of damascena, unless its smaller size be sufficient."

From: Rosarum monographia; or a botanical history of roses.

by John Lindley, printed for James Ridgway, 16a, Piccadilly.

1820.

Hurst suggested a separate origin for the summer damasks (R. gallica x R. phonicea) and the long blooming form, the so-called autumn damasks (R. gallica x R. moschata). This hypothesis, quite plausible, remained untested for over 50 years. The problem is that the summer and autumn damasks are not really different except in flowering behaviour - as Lindley correctly observed.

More recently some Japanese scientists [1] have suggested a single triparental origin for all damasks involving a first cross between the European species R. moschata (maternal parent) and R. gallica. This hybrid then crossed with the central Asian R. fedtschenkoana (from Xinjiang and Kazakhstan). If the genetic evidence for this hypothesis holds up then we are left with a historical conundrum: what strange quirk of history allowed a Mediterranean hybrid to cross with a central Asian wild rose from Kazakhstan, and where? The second mating must have taken place not much later than 1000 AD, and perhaps much before as R. damascena is an ancient rose. The origin of the damask rose is testament to the transfer of plants along the "Silk Road" between Europe and central Asia. Damask silks were woven in Damascus but the key ingredient - silk - came along the silk road from China. In the same way the damask rose was introduced to Europe from Damascus but a key ingredient - Rosa fedtschenkoana - came from China (or somewhere in central Asia).

The involvement of R. fedtschenkoana in the origin of the damasks does help to explain the morphology of the damasks - notably the greyish foliage and the pear shaped hips.

[1] H. Iwata, T. Kato, S. Ohno (2000) Triparental origin of Damask roses. Gene 259: 53–59.

Rosa alba "Semiplena"

Rosa alba, the White Rose of York is an ancient rose, much loved by Miss Jekyll. It was chosen by the Yorkists for their emblem, against Rosa gallica (or possibly Rosa damascena), the red rose of Lancaster. It is a lovely scented white single rose with attractive greyish foliage.

The story every English schoolchild learns is that sometime around 1450 Richard Plantagenet (Yorkist) and the Earl of Somerset (Lancastrian) met with other nobles in the Temple Garden in London to debate allegiance. Growing in the Temple garden was a bed of roses, white and red. As Shakespeare tells it:

Plantagenet: Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak,

In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts:

Let him that is a true-born gentleman

And stands upon the honour of his birth,

If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,

From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.

Somerset: Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,

But dare maintain the party of the truth,

Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.

The Temple Garden still exists as part of the Inns of Court in London. The name comes from the fact that it was the precinct of the Knights Templar in the 12th century, later passing into the hands of the Knights Hospitaller. The Halls became infested with lawyers in the 14th century, who found the site agreeable and never left.

Of course the Rosa alba picked by Richard may have been the fully double Rosa alba "Maxima", but the the semi-double variety Rosa alba "Semiplena", which is illustrated in the photograph here, is probably older. This has the best claim to be the Yorkists' rose.

Rosa gallica "Officinalis" and Rosa alba "Semiplena" are lovely together just as they were in the Temple garden in 1450. The taller Rosa alba should be in the middle and the gallicas planted around the outside - the result is the purest expression of the rose - that quintessence that entered into western culture in the high Middle Ages and, like the lawyers, never left.

Reine des Violettes

Raised in France in 1860, Reine des Violettes is one of the quintessential old roses. It put the luscious floral scent scent into the nostrils of the high Victorian age. Is it violet in colour? That would be an overstatement, although the purple-pink flowers do fade to give a mauve tint. The name may be more appropriate if the rich scent reminds one of sweet violets.

Usually classed as a Hybrid Perpetual, as it supposedly has tea rose in its ancestry, it looks more like an old Autumn Damask. It is said to have been selected by Millet-Mallet from a seedling of the rose "Pius IX", a rose named after the incumbent Pope of the day (a strongly Marian Pope who died in 1874).

The flowers of RdV are flat, well stuffed and quartered in the damask manner. A rose to treasure indeed, but it may be a shadow of its former self as there is some concern that viral load affects modern plants of this variety.

Sarah Van Fleet - rugosa hybrid

Now what did Miss Jekyll say about rugosa roses? Ah yes -

"The danger in rugosa hybrids is the tendency towards a strong magenta colouring".

Yes, that difficult magenta colour present in the typical R. rugosa species - it is not rose red, nor rose pink, but more like a rather nasty chemical spill in an IG Farben factory.

Fortunately not all rugosas carry this trait. The white rugosas can be very good, especially the glacial white of Blanc double de Coubert. The pinks too can be exceptionally soft and subtle. Conrad F. Meyer is an excellent plant with impressive salmon pink flowers.

However it is Sarah Van Fleet (see photograph) that is arguably the most beautiful of the pink rugosas. It is a delicate washed pink coupled with a graceful flower-form. Graham Thomas describes it as "shallow cups of cool pink with a hint of lilac" and that just about does the job. It was raised by Van Fleet (USA) in 1926 and said to result from a cross between R. rugosa and a long forgotten pink hybrid tea, "My Maryland".

Gertrude Jekyll and the ugly cottage

Gertrude Jekyll had a highly developed aesthetic sense. This has been discussed in another post. The roadside cottage (illustrated) she characterised as one of a class of buildings "worse than plainly ugly - debased by fictitious so-called ornament of the worst class". Only roses are the means by which such ugliness "may be redeemed and even made beautiful".

The little house, although never having any architectural pretension, was not built ugly. As Miss Jekyll explains:

The little house itself has lost much of its true character from the evident alteration of the windows, which would originally have been either lead lights and casements, or, if sash windows, would have had the panes smaller, with rather thick sash-bars. The large panes destroy the proportion and make the house look too small for them. Some ugly flat frames to all the windows, and pediment-shaped additions to the tops of the lower ones, do much to destroy and vulgarise the effect of what must have been a little building with the modest charm of perfect simplicity. The lead-roofed porch is right, and so is the open wooden railing. One cannot but be thankful that when the windows were altered so much for the worse, the railing was not replaced by a cast-iron "ornamental" atrocity.

The person who replaced the windows on this building simply had no sense of proportion and created ugliness where none existed. Miss Jekyll never lived to see the debasement of the architectural profession to the point where persons of no aesthetic training or sensibility are permitted to design buildings. The results would horrify Miss Jekyll and she would prescribe roses left, right and centre.

"A modest dwelling that has no special beauty or character may by a clever use of climbing Roses be converted into a delightful object."

Despite its problem windows and general debasement, the ugly cottage shown above is redeemed by roses. She admits: "No one could pass the roadside cottage shown in the illustration without a thrill of admiration for the free-growing cluster Rose that covers the walls and wreaths the front of the porch."

Rose 'Henry Hudson' and the Explorer series

The Canadian 'Explorer roses' are a triumph of plant breeding, combining long blooming season with extreme hardiness.

They were bred by Dr Felicitas Svejda at the Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa. Svedja's work started in 1961 and lasted until her retirement in 1987.

Photo: Rose 'Henry Hudson'

Henry Hudson (after whom Hudson's bay is named) is a good example - it is a vigorous very free blooming rugosa. The buds are pink and the flowers open white. It is indestructible and excellent. Schneezwerg, from which it is derived, is in itself one of the best of the rugosas, bred in Germany by Lambert (1912). However, Henry Hudson is a better repeat flowerer.

The 26 "Explorer series" roses fall into two main groups:

• rugosa hybrids (e.g. 'Martin Frobisher', 'Henry Hudson', 'Jens Munk', 'David Thompson' and 'Charles Albanel')
• kordesii hybrids (e.g. 'William Baffin', 'Frontenac', 'Alexander Mackenzie' and 'Louis Jolliet')

The rugosas were the first to be bred using the Rosa rugosa cultivar "Schneezwerg" ("Snow Dwarf") and other rugosas. The resultant roses were all named after explorers of Canada.