Rosa gallica "Officinalis" - the Apothecary Rose

Rose gallica is a European wild rose, a small shrub (usually less that 4 ft) and by convention considered red (actually more a deep reddish pink). A semi-double form "Officinalis" (see photograph, left) is one of the earliest recoded cultivated roses. It has many names, for instance: "The Provins Rose" (after the beautiful medieval town of Provins just outside Paris), or simply "The Red Rose". It is also the rose with the best claim to being the "Red Rose of Lancaster", the symbol of one of the warring factions in the wars of the roses.

The semi-double form is said to have originated in Damascus and been taken from thence by the crusader King Theobald in 1240 - taken back to his castle at Provins hence the name "Provins rose".

It has a fruity (rather than musky) scent, similar to the scent of Rosa damascena, and is a lovely garden plant. Its small size means that it can easily be used in flower borders and even to edge them, as it can be clipped into a lax low hedge. In Hidcote garden in England the striped form "Versicolor" has been used like this - to fabulous effect.

During the 19th century it spawned many sports and hybrids. The best of these (and all are my favourites!) are: "Belle de Crécy", "Cardinal de Richelieu" "Charles de Mills" and "Tuscany Superb". However, there is much to be said for the true original Apothecary Rose, and even for the wild single red rose. In Miss Jekyll's time the gallica roses were considered dépassé. She wrote about them only briefly in her chapter on the "Old Garden Roses":

"[The rose] Provins is Rosa gallica, the garden kinds being mostly striped; pretty, but not of the first importance..."

Being such an ancient variety, it became firmly embedded in medieval European culture. The red rose (Rosa gallica) and the lily (Lilium candidum) are described by the monk Walafrid Strabo (808 - 849 CE) in his poem "Hortulus". He makes it clear that the red of Rosa gallica had entered into Christian iconography as symbolizing the blood of the martyrs.

"These two flowers, well loved and honoured far and wide

Down many centuries have stood as emblems

Of the greatest treasures of the Church - the Rose plucked

As a sign of the blood shed by the blessed martyrs;

The Lily worn as a shining symbol of faith."

Similarly, when Hubert van Eyck (c. 1385 – 1426) set out to paint the great altarpiece at Ghent ("The Adoration of the Lamb"), his panel depicting the male martyrs has them standing by a red rose, using the same symbolism described by Strabo. It is commonly assumed that the red rose was also a symbol of Christ's passion. Actually there is little evidence of this. The standard symbol of the Passion during the Middle Ages was the heraldic pelican - pecking its breast to feed its young with its own blood.

The name "Apothecary rose" signifies correctly that this was by far the most important rose in ancient medicine. Nicholas Culpeper (1616 - 1654) in his Complete Herbal, always quick to criticise his contemporaries, says (mischievously):

"What a pother have authors made with roses! What a racket have they kept? I shall add, red Roses [Rosa gallica] are under Jupiter, Damask [R. damascena] under Venus, White [R. alba] under the moon and Provence [R. centifolia] under the King of France."

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.

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.

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.

The American Noisettes

It is well known that the original noisette rose was an American production. The story is often told of John Champney of Charleston, SC crossing a musk and a china rose, creating Champney's Pink Cluster. A seedling of this his friend and neighbour Philippe Noisette sent to France in 1814, where it became known as the "Noisette" rose. The Noisette was taken up by the French hybridisers who crossed them with tea roses to create some of the iconic roses of the 19th century.

What is sometimes overlooked is how much further development of the noisettes went on in America. This was mainly due to the fact that in the warm summers of the American south-east the early noisettes frequently set seed and these seedlings increased the diversity of the group. In this story some notable American rosarians stand out:

James Pentland

From 1843 Pentland was gardener at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, MD. Later he purchased land near the cemetery to set up his own nursery. Pentland prospered and in 1868 he was elected Representative for Baltimore City to the Maryland House of Delegates. His best known noisette roses were:

• Beauty of Green Mount (1854) "rich, brilliant carmine color, very large and double";
• Dr. Kane (1856) "with large yellow flowers";
• Woodland Marguerite (1859) "large, pure white, and double, free blooming, with a lilac fragrance".

Charles Grafton Page

Page (1812-1868) was an inventor and professor of chemistry in Washington DC, as well as a notable amateur rosarian. His roses included:

• America (distributed by Thomas G. Ward, 1859) "flowers large, creamy yellow, with a salmon tinge; a cross from Solfaterre and Safrano"
• Cinderella (1859) "rosy crimson".

Andrew Gray

Gray was foreman of the Buist nursery firm in Philadelphia before setting up on his own in Charleston SC around 1849. He raised at least two noisettes:

• Isabella Gray, named after his eldest daughter, a seedling from Cloth of Gold
• Jane Hardy (named after his wife) also a seedling from Cloth of Gold. According to Rivers this is: "like the old double yellow rose, its buds burst without opening".

Anthony Cook

Of Cook little appears to be know except he came from Baltimore. He raised two noisettes:

• Nasaliana (1872) "flowers pink, of flat form, very fragrant; a seedling from Desprez".
• Tuseneltea (1860) "Pale yellow; a seedling from Solfaterre".

Of these American seedlings few, if any, survive. This is in contrast to the French noisettes, such as Cloth of Gold (1841), Desprez and Lamarque which are still available today.

Old Garden roses - The cabbage or Provence Rose (Rosa centifolia) and Provins Rise (Rosa gallica)

Chapter 2 (extract 1) of "Roses for English gardens" by Jekyll and Mawley (1902), in which Miss Jekyll notes the superb scent of the old-fashioned Provence or cabbage rose, and the virtues of the Provins Rose. Despite the superficial similarity of the names, the Provence Rose (R. centifolia) and the Provins Rose (R. gallica) are very different roses.

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CHAPTER II - garden roses new and old

Old Garden Roses

The first Rose that comes to mind among the old favourites is the Cabbage or Provence (R. centifolia). No Rose surpasses it in excellence of scent; it stands alone as the sweetest of all its kind, as the type of the true Rose smell. The Moss Rose is a variety of the Cabbage Rose, with a mossy calyx having its own delicious scent, of a more aromatic or cordial character. They are so well known that one need say no more than that they should never be neglected or forgotten.

There are several dwarf Roses—dwarf not in the nurseryman's sense, which only means a Rose that is not a standard—but actually dwarf in stature and correspondingly small in all their parts, that are derived from the Provence Rose. These are the neat little De Meaux and the still prettier Spong, and the charming Moss de Meaux, and their white varieties.

Of the old Provins Roses (R. gallica) there are a number of catalogued varieties. They are mostly striped or splashed with rosy and purplish colour. I have grown them nearly all, but though certainly pretty things, they are of less value in the garden than the striped Damask Rosa Mundi. But there is an old garden Rose, the Blush gallica, much more double, and that grows into very strong bushes, that is a good Rose for all gardens. It will put up with any treatment. I have it on the top of a dry wall where it tumbles over in the prettiest way and blooms even more freely than the bushes on the level.

These two names, Provence and Provins, for two classes of garden Roses of the same kind of growth and use, are so much alike that they are one of the puzzles that the Rose amateur has to get clear in his mind in the earlier stages of his education. Provence is the Cabbage Rose (R. centifolia) \ Provins is Rosa gallica, the garden kinds being mostly striped; pretty, but not of the first importance ; the best as far as my own knowledge and judgment go being Reine Blanche (if it be a true gallica) and the full double Blush gallica.

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See also:

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

A list of the best Old Garden Roses

New Roses of the late Victorian era

Chapter 1 (extract 1) of "Roses for English Gardens" by Jekyll and Mawley (1902), in which Miss Jekyll contrasts the new roses of the late Victorian era with the old garden favourites such as Damask and Provence roses.

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CHAPTER I

GARDEN ROSES NEW AND OLD

New Garden Roses

One of the most distinct and wholesome effects of the spread of garden knowledge and love of flowers that has filled the land of late years is the demand for good garden Roses. By the term "garden Roses," is meant Roses for ordinary garden use, though the word has a more exclusive use in the schedules of Rose Societies, where it means any Roses other than those that are classed as show kinds. In this case the more rigid distinction is of use, though in the garden it does not concern us in the least, for it naturally happens that a grand show Rose is often a grand garden Rose also.

But in the usual jargon of horticulture the word "garden Rose" makes one first think of Damask and Provence or Cabbage Roses, of Moss Roses, of Sweet Brier and Scotch Brier, of Cinnamon Rose and Rosa lucida, of China Rose, and of the old climbing cluster kinds; in short, of all the older favourites that will grow readily in any garden in answer to reasonable care and preparation.

It is only of late years, since an increased recognition of the delights of the garden has spread anew throughout Britain, and is rapidly extending through her colonies, that any notable additions have been made to the garden Roses. But our best Rose growers have not been slow to perceive how gladly their good new garden Roses have been welcomed; the success of these has encouraged further effort, and whereas a few years ago lists of new Roses were mostly attractive to specialists, and consisted almost exclusively of Hybrid Perpetuals and Teas, the new Rose lists of to-day include kinds that appeal to every one who loves a garden.

The reason for the older limitation may be easily understood, for whereas success in growing the show Roses depends, to begin with, either on the possession of a good Rose soil, or on those qualifications of knowledge, determination, and command of money that can create one where it does not exist, the wants of the free and "garden " Roses are so comparatively modest, they are so accommodating and so little fastidious, that with very moderate preparation and encouragement they can be made to succeed in much poorer soils. Then it is but few that aspire to the honours of the show table, while nearly every one who is master of a rood of land now desires to enjoy it as a garden.

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See also:

Turner's Crimson rambler

Multiflora roses

Dwarf polyantha roses (Pompom roses)

The wichuriana roses (Rosa wichuriana hybrids)

The rugosa roses (Rosa rugosa)

Some new tea roses and species roses for gardens

Sweet Briars (Rosa rubiginosa) and the Penzance hybrids