China.
LAURETTE MESSIMY.
We now come to a quite modern class of perpetual flowering roses, which is as yet too little known, except among those ardent rose-growers who keep closely in touch with the marvels of modern hybridization. And this special race is indeed one of its most extraordinary results. For
The Dwarf Polyantha Roses, R. Multiflora,
are derived from the summer flowering, climbing Multiflora, and in them we get a first cousin of, say, Crimson Rambler, so dwarf as to make a charming two-feet high edging to an ordinary rose-bed, and so thoroughly perpetual, that from May to December it is thickly covered with its hundreds of miniature flowers in clusters. How these tiny roses, which remind one of the "Fairy Rose" of long-ago nursery days, came into being is not exactly known. But they were evidently the result of crossings with the Tea rose strain. M. J. B. Guillot developed the first, Ma Paquerrette, pure white, flowering in large bunches, in 1875. In 1879, Rambaux followed with the charming Anna Maria de Montravel, one of the best known of the class. The next year Ducher brought out the lovely Cecile Brunner, blush, shaded pink, and the race was fully recognized. Since then nearly every year has seen fresh varieties; and the charming little plants are growing in favour.
These roses may be roughly divided into two classes: one showing the Polyantha blood very strongly; the other the Tea blood.
In the first, the flowers, whether double or single, are borne in dense upright clusters, after the manner of the true Multiflora. Some of the best of these are Gloire des Polyantha; Schneewittchen; the fine Mme. N. Levavasseur, really a miniature Crimson Rambler; the even more attractive Mrs. W. H. Cutbush, a bright pink Crimson Rambler; and the exquisite little Baby Dorothy, which has created such a sensation as a pot plant since it was shown in the spring of 1907. These are all admirably fitted for planting in masses. In the famous Pépinière, or Public Gardens of Nancy, beds of Madame N. Levavasseur last autumn (1907) were remarkably effective. In one the ground was thickly covered among the plants with a very dwarf grey-blue Ageratum; and the effect of the erect crimson clusters of the rose over the soft grey flowers was most striking; while another bed of the same rose was edged with a dwarf bronze-foliaged fibrous Begonia. Even more charming was a whole bed of Mrs. W. H. Cutbush, which I saw in MM. Soupert et Notting's garden at Luxembourg, the rich rosy colour being much finer.