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.
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