The Book of Roses

by Francis Parkman

The Sweet-brier, found wild in various parts of the world, is too well known to need further notice. The American variety differs distinctly from the European.

The Scotch roses owe their origin to the dwarf wild rose of Scotland. The Ayrshire is a family of climbing roses, originating from the wild trailing rose, Rosa Arven-sis, common in the British islands. The best of them are said, however, to be hybrids between this rose' and other species. The Boursault roses are descendants of Rosa Alpina, a native of the Alps; and no family is more clearly marked by distinctive features. The Sempervirens and the Multiflora are, with us at least, less familiar. Both are climbers, like the former; the one originating from a wild rose of Italy, the other from a wild rose of Japan. The Banksia, with its smooth, shining leaves, and slender, green stems, is well known in every greenhouse. Its progenitor is a native of China or Tartary, and the improved varieties are chiefly due to the labors of Chinese florists.

There is another race of climbers, held in great scorn by foreign florists, but admirably adapted to our climate, under whose influences they put forth beauties by no means contemptible. These are the progeny of the wild Michigan or Prairie Rose, rampant growers, and generally sturdy enough to outface our hardest winters. The best of them, however, the Baltimore Belle, is evidently the offspring of a foreign marriage, which, while contributing fragrance and beauty to the rugged race of the prairies, has detracted something from its hardihood. The union, probably accidental, seems to have been with the Tea Rose or the Noisette.

Of the foregoing groups, all except the Damask Perpetual are once-blooming. The following have, to a greater or less extent, the desirable character of a continued or successive bloom.

The Macartney Rose is a wild rose of China, from which a few improved varieties have been raised from seed. Its evergreen shining foliage is its most attractive feature. The Microphylla, or Small-leaved Rose, is closely akin to the Macartney, and, like the latter, is a native of the East.

The Musk is a rose much more familiarly known. It descends from a Persian or Syrian progenitor, and its vigorous growth, rich clusters of bloom, and peculiar fragrance, have long made it a favorite. But by far the most interesting and valuable among the unmixed races of ever-blooming roses are the numberless offspring of Rosa Indica, in its several varieties. To it we owe all the China and Tea-scented roses, while to its foreign alliances we are indebted for a vast and increasing host of brilliant hybrids.

Thus, from the families of pure blood, we come at length to those in which is mingled that of two or more distinct races. Convey the pollen of a China rose to the stigmas of a French, Damask, or Provence rose, and from the resulting seed an offspring arises different from either parent. Hence a new group of roses known as the Hybrid Chinas. The parents are both of moderate growth. The offspring is usually of such vigor as to form with readiness a pillar eight feet high. Its foliage is distinct, its bloom often as profuse and brilliant as that of the China, and its constitution as hardy, or nearly so, as that of the French Rose. Unlike the former, it blooms but once in the year, or only in a few exceptional instances shows a straggling autumnal flower. By a vicious system of subdivision, the group has been separated into Hybrid China, Hybrid Bourbon, and Hybrid Noisette. The two latter are the same as the first: except, in the one case, a slight infusion of the Damask Perpetual; and, in the latter, of the Musk Rose. In many cases, no human discernment could detect the effects of the admixture.

Again: convey the pollen of the China or Tea Rose to the flowers of the Musk, or vice versa and for a result we obtain the Noisette, inheriting from the former various striking characteristics of foliage and bloom, and from the latter its vigorous climbing habit and clustering inflorescence. But, by impregnation through several generations, some of the Noisettes retain so little of their Musk parent, that its traits are almost obliterated: they no longer bloom in clusters, and can scarcely be distinguished from the pure Tea Rose.

Again: a union of a Damask Perpetual with a China rose has produced a distinct race, of vigorous habit and peculiar foliage, possessing in a high degree the ever-blooming character of both its parents. It is hardier than the China Rose, though usually unable to bear a New-England winter unprotected. This is the Bourbon Rose, a brilliant and beautiful group, worth all the care which in this latitude its out-door culture requires.

The Moss Rose, impregnated with various ever-blooming varieties, has borne hybrids partially retaining the mossy stem and calyx, with a tendency more or less manifest to bloom in the autumn. Hence the group of the Perpetual Moss, a few only of whose members deserve the name.