That’s very generous of you, Kim. Thank you. Max Graf would be interesting to play with. I wasn’t aware that San Jose Heritage provided cuttings. I also was thinking that, until I was able to lay hands on kordesii, I might try Belle Poitevine, Rosarie de L’Hay or Therese Bugnet, even though they’re all diploids, since it’s the rugosa traits I’m interested in, not the wichurana.
I also see Red Damask isn’t available commercially in the United States, so I’m thinking of Kazanlik, whose hips suggest recent fedtschenkoana ancestry. Another possibility is Gloire de Guilan.
You’re welcome, Steven. The main issue is the garden doesn’t have the “staff” to accommodate the requests. Occasionally one can be handled for a donation to the garden, but they are all volunteers with no one there all the time to deal with them. Fortunately, Jill Perry, the Curator, is friend of mine and is going to meet another friend and me there for a visit. Which “Red Damask” are you looking for? Are there any other synonyms it hides under? Perhaps it is available, but known as something else?
According to HMF, San Jose has Red Damask under R. damascena. It’s also known as Summer Damask.
Another variety I find interesting and beautiful is Rose de Resht, an old damask with some repeat. You may notice a theme here. But it’s available commercially.
I really appreciate your generosity and readiness to mentor novices, Kim.
The interactive San Jose database lists Autumn Damask twice. The photo for the Autumn Damask in bed O-16-16 appears actually to be Summer Damask, as it is red to dark pink. The Autumn Damask in P-12-5 appears to be the actual Autumn Damask, a medium to light pink and more fully double.
So I think they may have Summer Damask, but it is mislabeled in the database. However, this photo isn’t a match to the photos at HMF for Summer Damask, so who knows.
Steven you are right about Kim, he is very generous with his time and knowledge.
As tou are doing a lot of research Steven can you do it on “yellows” for me please(only joking) Kim knows my facination with yellows.
Yes Kim, a “like” button would be good, how many can you handle a day.
Steven,
Old names and descriptions can be very confusing. The Old Red Damask, so called, is pink. The White Damask was also pink, but of a lighter shade. There was another, lighter sport (still not really white), but I’m not sure what it was called. Also, reproductions of old prints are not entirely reliable.
Striped Monthly, George Ehret, 1740s
White Monthly (with pink in the center), Robert Furber, 1730
Brent Dickerson discusses the confusion in The Old Rose Informant, pp. 462-464:
I do take exception to the old assumption that a Damask rose was a parent of the Bourbons. The historical and botanical evidence points to a Centifolia as the European rose accidentally married with a China. The Rose Edouard would probably have been a 2nd or later generation derivative.
IIRC there’s also genetic evidence of a trace of multiflora in it, and a reasonable argument that it was grown in India before “originating” on Ile de Bourbon. I’ve become very sceptical of most old rose ancestry tales.
Since there are not a lot of people breeding Damasks, I’ll post a little on my experiences with them in another thread, so that some of my mistakes need not be repeated.
Interesting! There is also supposed to be some multiflora and luciae var luciae in the Crimson Chinas. Could it be that ‘Old Blush’ is not the other parent?
Oh! I hadn’t heard that. A common ancestor wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Have you read any of the theories about a rose called Ward Sebba’auy? Almost all of it is in French, so a bit under the radar for Anglophones, but I thought much of it was plausible. Ward sebba'auy, ancêtre des rosiers Bourbon got the discussion going, but there was a lot of interesting followup, which I hope is still available online.
Rose Edouard was used in India at an early date as rootstock, and I recall one discussion where someone claimed to have unearthed evidence of roses being ordered from India, by customers on Ile de Bourbon, in the time period concerned. I’ve read speculation that the people given credit for growing it on Bourbon might not have wanted to disclaim their miraculous rebloomer, whether they deserved the credit or not, or that French colonists might not have wanted to attribute such an advanced rose to people they viewed as brown skinned heathens. While nothing that I know of history or human nature could shoot down those speculations, they aren’t even necessary. If Rose Edouard was essentially a seedling of Ward Sebba’auy that surpassed the original, Bourbon colonists could have grown it without knowing that they were doing so. Maybe their scions died.
Given the longstanding associations between red chinensis and India, e.g. the Bengale sub-class, and the fact that no damascena seedling of mine has had thorns remotely like those on Rose Edouard, I’m perfectly happy to disregard the old story in its entirety. Your pointing out that old “species” Bengales are part multiflora, makes it all the easier.
I have also seen references to the use of the Bourbon rose as a rootstock in India, but those I read are much later than the first mention of the rose in 1820. It could easily have been taken from Reunion to India.
I had not heard of the Ward Sebba’auy, so I googled the name for an English-language description.
All the Egyptian specimens which I will deal with in the following under the name of R. damascena are of hybridogen nature containing characters of R. gallica. They are to be considered as Damask Roses according to the descriptions in the best and most critical works of the rose literature. Most of these specimens of damascena-type are labelled with the Arabic name ward sebba’auy and are generally very similar to each other. I will here give a description of this type (fig. 2).
Ward Sebba’auy. (Fig. 2.) — Stem green, straight and in most cases unbranched; prickles scattered, compressed from the sides, of triangular shape with straight or slightly recurved tip; bristles only in the inflorescences; leaflets 5-7, ovate to elliptic, terminal leaflets ovate, shortly acuminate, 5-6 cm. long and 3 1/2 to 4 cm. broad; lateral leaflets usually ovate-elliptic, acute; leaves rather thin in texture, above glabrous, beneath pale green, glabrous or with slightly hairy midrib; lateral veins hardly raised; teeth simple or slightly double; rhachis with short glands glabrous or minutely hairy with scattered small prickles; stipules narrow with short divergent points with glandular margin; inflorescence a rich to 20-flowered corymb; pedicels narrow, densely glandular and bristly, usually without hairs, slowly passing over in the narrowly funnel-shaped, below glandular, above usually glabrous receptacles; sepals glandular, the inner ones entire, the outer ones pinnatifid with narrow lobes, endlobe often long, leaflike, pinnatifid; sepals reflexed during flowering flowering; corolla double, probably dark rose-coloured; styles free, to 7 mm long, hairy; fruits narrowly obovate, 2-2 1/2 cm. long, glabrous.
The 20-flowered inflorescence and 7 mm styles suggests a hybrid of Moschata and Gallica.
The Indian Rose Annual for 2015 has some interesting discussions and pictures of roses and their histories.
The article ‘Miraculous Old Rose ‘Baoxiang’ in China and ‘Kakinada Red’ in India’, by Professor Guoliang Wang, is particularly interesting. However, early reports I have read of roses in India do not mention anything like it.
Speede (1840) lists: … the Madras rose, the rose Edward, the sweet scented Bussorah rose, (red and white) the Persian rose, the sweet briar, the many‑flowered rose, (a climber,) the China rose, (red and damask,) and the dog rose (growing wild); the moss rose may be found to exist, but has not, it is believed, been yet known to blossom in India.
It is also interesting to learn that the Bussorah rose (R. gallica) had an unusually long period of bloom in India. Speede (1848) has it blooming December through March. Whereas Hamilton (1828) wrote, “middle of February to the middle of May”. [Bussorah = Basra in Iraq]
Well, there goes one of my lines of research. I found a reference by a Portuguese explorer from the 1500s, who stayed in a port city on the northwest coast of India during the months of Nov-Feb, to a religious ritual he’d attended which featured roses on the altar. Aha, I thought, evidence of rebloomers! Autumn Damask, or Ward Sebba’auy? But if they had already gotten Kakinada Red from the Chinese, and Gallicas bloom there in winter, I can’t draw any conclusions at all.
