The varieties of a plant are, by Botanists, designated by names intended to convey an idea of certain characteristics,—the form and consistency of the leaves, the arrangement, number, size, and color of the flowers, seed-vessels, etc. The varieties of roses, however, have so few distinct characteristics, that florists find it difficult to give any name expressive of the very slight shades of difference in the color or form of the flower. Fanciful names have therefore been chosen, indiscriminately, according to the taste of the grower; and we thus find classed, in brotherly nearness, Napoleon and Wellington, Queen Victoria and Louis Philippe, Othello and Wilberforce, with many others. Any half-dozen English or French rose growers may give the name of their favorite Wellington or Napoleon to a rose raised by each of them, and entirely different in form and color from the other five bearing the same name. Thus has arisen the great confusion in rose nomenclature.
A still greater difficulty and confusion, however, exists in the classification adopted by the various English and French rose growers. By these, classes are multiplied and roses placed in them without sufficient attention to their distinctive characters; these are subsequently changed to other classes, to the utter confusion of those who are really desirous of obtaining some knowledge of the respective varieties. Even Rivers, the most correct of them all, has in several catalogues the same rose in as many different classes, and his book may perhaps place it in another. He thus comments upon this constant change:
“Within the last ten years, how many plants have been named and unnamed, classed and re-classed!—Professor A. placing it here, and Dr. B. placing it there! I can almost imagine Dame Nature laughing in her sleeve, when our philosophers are thus puzzled. Well, so it is, in a measure, with roses; a variety has often equal claims to two classes. First impressions have perhaps placed it in one, and there rival amateurs should let it remain.”
If there exists, then, this doubt of the proper class to which many roses belong, we think it would be better to drop entirely this sub-classification, and adopt some more general heads, under one of which every rose can be classed. It may often be difficult to ascertain whether a rose is a Damask, a Provence, or a Hybrid China; but there can be no difficulty in ascertaining whether it is dwarf or climbing, whether it blooms once or more in the year, and whether the leaves are rough as in the Remontants, or smooth as in the Bengals. We have therefore endeavored to simplify the old classification, and have placed all roses under three principal heads, viz:
I. Those that make distinct and separate periods of bloom throughout the season, as the Remontant Roses.
II. Those that bloom continually, without any temporary cessation, as the Bourbon, China, etc.
III. Those that bloom only once in the season, as the French and others.
Remontants.—The first of these divisions includes only the present Damask and Hybrid Perpetuals, and for these we know no term so expressive as the French Remontant. “Perpetual” does not express their true character.
Everblooming Roses is the name we give to those included under the second general head. This is divided into five classes: