Rosa gallica "Versicolor" - rosa mundi or Fair Rosamund's rose

This ancient striped gallica, "Versicolor", known from well before 1600, is clearly a striped sport of the even more ancient gallica variety "Officinalis".

Versicolor is even lower growing than Officinalis and makes a wonderful clipped border hedge (as at Hidcote) and often reverts to Officinalis.

Tradition has it that Officinalis (the Provins rose) was brought back from the Barons Crusade (1239-1241) by King Theobald I of Navarre to his castle at Provins near Paris in 1240. Tradition also has it that he carried it all the way from Damascus in his helmet.

No one knows exactly where or when the striped form arose but it must have been after this.

What of the curious name "rosa mundi"? The Latin literally means rose of the world (i.e. with the world's impurities) as opposed to the Latin "rosa munda" meaning "pure rose". The name therefore alludes to the impurity of its colouring being splashed red and white.

This play on words is said to have been the epitaph on the tomb (now lost) of Fair Rosamund, the mistress of Henry II, who was eventually banished to a nunnery for her impropriety.

Hic jacet in tumba Rosamundi non Rosamunda, Non redolet sed olet, quae redolere solet.
(Here lies entombed a worldly rose, not a rose that's pure; she who used to smell so sweet, now smells but not so sweetly)

White splashed with crimson indeed.

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.

The Roses of Henry Arthur Bright

Henry Arthur Bright (1830-1884), the author of "A Year in a Lancashire Garden" and "The English Flower Garden" worked in his family shipping firm while gardening at his home in Knotty Ash near Liverpool. His books on gardening were well loved due to their brevity and literary quality. Bright took up the cudgels against carpet bedding which had reached, in mid-Victorian times, absurd proportions. He is thus, along with William Robinson, one of the first "natural gardeners". He was also one of the few to recognize the writings of Forbes Watson and is therefore part of the curious chain from John Ruskin to William Robinson.

It is therefore of interest to see what roses he endorses in his "English Flower Garden" (1881). Unsurprisingly he harks back to many old English favourites at the expense of some contemporaneous roses, which by 1881 were reaching an apoapsis of artifice. To quote Bright:

"Then come roses, and we would strongly recommend that, in addition to the newer "remontant" roses, the old roses and the old way of growing them should not be quite forgotten. Standard roses are all very well, but a rose-bush covered over with blossom is very often much better. "Madame Rothschild" is pre-eminent in beauty, but (if she will tolerate the "odorous" comparison) the old cabbage rose or moss rose has a charm of scent and of association of which their fashionable rival is entirely devoid. The old pink china or monthly rose, which flowers on from early summer to latest autumn, deserves a bed to itself. It should be trained and pegged down, as is so constantly done in Belgium and Holland, and the blue lobelia should be planted in between. A bed of yellow briar rose is still more beautiful, but it lasts for weeks only instead of months. Other beautiful old summer roses are the maiden's blush, the Portland rose, the rose unique, and the rose Celeste. But no rose, taking all the good qualities of a rose together, its hardiness, free blooming, beauty, and scent, will surpass the Gloire de Dijon, though the golden cups of Marshal Niel may be richer in colour, and the fragrance of La France recalls, as no other rose does, the luscious fragrance of Oriental otto of roses".

These selections, of course, mirror the taste of Gertrude Jekyll as detailed in her book, the eponymous inspiration for this blog. We begin to see the threads gathering into her yarn.

The "odorous comparison" is a pointed dig, as Madame Rothschild has no scent and what is a rose without scent? Unique is the white form of the cabbage rose, Rosa centifolia, an old rose and like the pink cabbage rose guaranteed to take any eminent Victorian back to their childhood. Celeste, like Maiden's Blush is an old alba, one of the "cottage garden roses". Gloire de Dijon, an advanced noisette, was universally acclaimed the finest climbing rose of the nineteenth century. Miss Jekyll writes of it: "The most free-flowering of all climbing Roses, and for general usefulness has no equal".

Note: for more on Bright see Beverly Seaton's article "The Garden Writing of Henry Arthur Bright". Garden History, Vol. 10 (1982), pp. 74-79.

A list of the best Old Garden Roses

Chapter 2 (extract 8) of "Roses for English Gardens" by Jekyll and Mawley (1902), in which Miss Jekyll lists her favourites among the old garden roses (old by 1902 standards!).

Miss Jekyll concentrates on the wild or near wild roses which have country charm rather than the large numbers of named centifolia and gallica varieties from France which would also qualify as old roses. This is in accordance with her aesthetic of simplicity.

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See also:

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

Old Garden Roses - The damask rose

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

SOME OF THE BEST OLD GARDEN ROSES

Cabbage or Provence Roses (R. centifolia).

• Other varieties.

Moss Roses (R. centifolia muscosa)—

• Common Pink.
• Other varieties.

Pompons of the centifolia class—

• De Meaux; pink, and white variety.
• Moss de Meaux; pink.
• Spong; pink.
• Burgundy; pink, and white variety.

Provins Roses (R. gallica)—

• Mecene; white and rose striped.
• Perle des Panaches; white, striped lilac-rose.
• Gros Provins Panache; red and white striped.
• Other varieties.

Damask (R. damascena)—

• Common Red.
• Cottage Maid, Rosa Mundi, or York and Lancaster; red and white.
• One or two other varieties.

Cinnamon Rose (R. cinnamomea); pink.

R. lucida; rose.

• Rose d'Amour, its double variety.

Scotch Briers, including the type Burnet Rose (R. spinosissima), and the double kinds in several colourings.

Sweet-brier, the old single pink.

The White Rose (R. alba)—

• Double White.
• Maiden's Blush; blush.
• Celeste; blush.

Boursault (R. alpina)—

• Several varieties, the best being—
• Morletti; rose.
• Blush Boursault; blush white, clear rose to centre.

Field Rose (R. arvensis); white.

• Single and half-double garden kinds.

Banksian Rose (R. Banksii)—

• Double Yellow ; the best, nankeen yellow.

China Rose (R. indica)—

• Common Pink.
• Cramoisi Superieur and its climbing variety; deep crimson.
• Other varieties.

Fortune's Yellow (R. Fortunei); tender, orange and copper.

Miscellaneous—

• Coupe d'Hebe; pink pillar rose.
• Madame Plantier; white, large bush or pillar.
• Emilie Plantier; free, pink white.
• Lady Emily Peel; free, warm white.
• There are other varieties in this class.

Portland Roses—

• Rose du Roi and others; rose and red.

Climbing Cluster Roses; known as Ayrshire, Hybrids of sempervirens, Musk, &c.

• Dundee Rambler; warm white.
• Garland; warm white.
• Bennett's Seedling; white.
• Ruga; flesh.
• Felicite-Perpetue; cream white.
• Flora; pink.
• Splendens; warm white.
• Queen of the Belgians; white.
• Some others.