70 Old Roses: General History.
Description
This article is from the Rose Gardening FAQ, by Bill Chandler chandler@austin.ibm.com, Jolene Adams jolene@cchem.berkeley.edu, Brent C. Dickerson odinthor@csulf.edu, Karen Baldwin kbaldwin@veribest.com, and many contributors
70 Old Roses: General History.
Various wild roses grow throughout the Northern Hemisphere in sites
ranging from riparian and swampy all the way to those of the desert.
Two geographical groupings which, at first, developed separately, have
had--both in their separation and in their ultimate combination--the
greatest importance in rose history: The European/Mediterranean group
of species and their hybrids, and the Oriental group of species and
their hybrids.
The European roses are primarily the following: Gallicas, Albas,
Damasks, Damask Perpetuals, Centifolias, and Mosses. The mainstream
Oriental groups are Chinas and Teas. The European sorts--with one
important exception--have only one season of bloom per year, while the
Orientals repeat bloom more or less continuously.
The European/Mediterranean roses or their forebears have been grown and
loved since the earliest days of history (and no doubt before). Wreaths
of Damask-like roses have been found in Egyptian tombs; seemingly the
same rose--called at one time "Rosa sancta" (the Holy Rose)--has been
grown down to our own days in holy places in eastern Africa. Frescoes
painted during the heyday of the Minoan culture on Crete show roses.
The festivals both sacred and profane of the classical Greeks included
roses, and did those of the Romans. During the Roman era, a
repeat-blooming variant of the Damask rose evidently appeared, the
first member of a group which came to be called "Damask Perpetuals."
The Romans were so sophisticated that they developed a hot-house
technology which allowed them to "force" roses into more bloom; they
also imported roses from Egypt. The roses of these most ancient times
in Europe and the Mediterranean were seemingly the Damasks, the Albas,
and the Gallicas.
During the Middle Ages, these roses retained a certain religious use,
not only as decorations and adjuncts to (now Christian) holy festivals,
but also as denizens of the medicinal gardens. Their medicinal
associations as well as the simple human delight in their fragrance
brought about the distillation-of-rose-essence industry, which still
has local importance in a few areas of Europe (formerly France, now
primarily Bulgaria).
With the end of the Middle Ages and the rise of the merchant class,
commerce in horticultural material began to flourish. Due to their
fleet of trading ships and the peculiarities of their geography, the
Netherlands became (and continue) a great center of horticultural
business. Alongside their trade in Tulips, Hyacinths, Carnations, and
the like, came something new in Occidental rose progress: systematic
growing of roses from seed (previously, roses had primarily been
propagated from cuttings, suckers, runners, and possibly to a small
degree by grafts). This opened up the possibility inherent in sexual
reproduction: Variation. One of the great holes in knowledge of rose
history concerns what roses they used in this, and how they went about
it--but, at any rate, whereas previously only some tens of rose
cultivars existed, now, in the period up to about 1810, one or two
hundred became available, indeed a whole new group, the Centifolias,
arising from the complex and possibly arbitrary breeding of the Dutch.
Around 1800, the French became interested in roses and the rose
industry. This interest was fueled by the French Empress Josephine, who
surrounded herself with adepts in all fields of interest to her--one
was Botany--while she consoled herself at the palace of Malmaison over
her divorce from her beloved Napoleon. At this palace, she collected
all the available sorts of roses, and encouraged the breeding and
hybridizing of new ones. Spurred by this imperial patronage, several
French breeders--notably Dupont and Descemet--went to work with a
vengeance, developing several hundred new cultivars in the European
groups (Gallicas, Damasks, Albas, Centifolias . . . ). Descemet indeed
very carefully kept notes of the results of particular crosses, and may
be said to have been the first in the West to have practiced controlled
cross-breeding. We must turn, however, to the Orient for a moment,
leaving Europe in the throes of Napoleonic war and rose-breeding. There
is alas little information on Oriental--or, more specifically,
Chinese--rose breeding. One finds indications that roses were favored,
though perhaps not to the extent that the Peony, the Chrysanthemum, or
the Camellia were. What is important to note, however, is that by the
period 1750-1824, four cultivars in particular--often called today
(rather rustically) "The Four Stud Chinas"--had been developed. Two
were true China roses, one pink, one red. Two were Tea roses, one
blush, one yellowish. These were continuous-blooming, as the Oriental
roses were, but not hardy, and their introduction into the Occident at
length completely revolutionized rose progress.
The French, though their Emperor had fallen and Josephine was dead,
continued their efforts with both the old material and now with the
new. Due to political problems, Descemet had to flee France, but an
ex-soldier of Napoleon's army, wounded in Italy, now prosperous as a
hardware-shop owner, indulged his interest in roses and bought what
remained of Descemet's nursery and breeding notes after the site of the
nursery was sacked by invading English troops. This was Jean-Pierre
Vibert, whose intelligence and industriousness working from 1816-1850
had a lasting influence on the French rose industry.
The crosses with the new material were made as work continued in all
groups of roses. Never before the 1820's had such a diversity of
disparate roses been available--and never since. Almost every available
species, no matter how obscure, had varieties and subvarieties of
varying color or form due to breeding or sports. A sport of the
Centifolia, the Moss Rose, had appeared a few decades before, and now
began to spread its unique array of cultivars over the rose scene as
the breeders worked with it.
As the 1820's became the 1830's, however, interest was concentrated on
the breeding between the Oriental roses and the Europeans. Due to the
laws of genetics, the first progeny of crosses between once-bloomers
and repeat-bloomers were once-blooming. As they were crossed with each
other, however, and then back to the Chinas and Teas, repeat-blooming
hybrids began to appear. These were crossed with Damask Perpetuals. The
1830's were a time of ferment and experimentation with these.
Meantime, on an island in the Indian Ocean (though there is some debate
about this), a new cross between a China and a Damask Perpetual
appeared. This was the Bourbon Rose. Its appearance at this time made
it a part of the breeding going on primarily in France (though efforts
were also underway in England).
The outcome of all these crosses jelled in the 1840's into the group
called "Hybrid Perpetuals"--a name which implied to the people of the
time "Damask Perpetuals which have been hybridized with Other Sorts."
This group, taking in cultivars of all colors and forms, and (best of
all to the people of the era) at least somewhat re-blooming and hardy,
overwhelmed almost all the other groups. Interest in the old European
sorts waned; they were gradually set aside, kept mainly as sentimental
remembrances of the past by a few devotees.
The idea of rose shows and competitions was on the rise at this time.
These events began for better or worse to standardize the concept of
what a rose blossom should look like, and made many concentrate on the
rose as a producer of exhibition items rather than a decorative plant
for the garden.
Breeding experimentation continued. The original, rather
weakly-growing, Teas were crossed with Bourbons to make a new, robust
sort of Tea. As the search to widen the range of Hybrid Perpetuals
continued, they were crossed with the Teas producing a group which came
to be known as Hybrid Teas. Efforts along these lines really got
underway seriously in the 1870's, though there had been a few earlier
such crosses as well.
But, still experimentation continued. A strong yellow rose was wanted.
The Teas had light yellows among their number, but these had a tendency
to fade, and the plants were not as robust as people had become
accustomed to from the Hybrid Perpetuals. A deep yellow species, R.
foetida, had been used to produce a Tea 'Ma Capucine' by the breeder
Levet in 1871, but the plant was weak-growing, discouraging further
work. In the 1890's, Pernet-Ducher turned to the problem, and, after a
long series of experiments with Teas, Hybrid Teas, Hybrid Perpetuals,
and (finally) R. foetida, produced offspring around 1900 from a cross
of the HP 'Antoine Ducher' and R. foetida which had a yellow/gold/coral
tone that seemed to promise much. Further developments from this cross
were called "Pernetianas," and at length they were combined with the
original Hybrid Teas to produce what might be called "Hybrid Hybrid
Teas"--the Hybrid Teas of today.
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