Old Roses in Calvert County, Maryland - by Mrs. Frederick L. Keays, 1932 American Rose Annual

Old Roses in Calvert County, Maryland
By MRS. FREDERICK L. KEAYS, Great Neck, L. I., N. Y.

From the 1932 American Rose Society Annual pgs. 102-113

EDITOR's NOTE: Here is recorded some excellent research work among the roses of an olden day. Mrs. Keays has shown us in this article how to go about the business of identifying old roses, and has indicated the most reliable authorities and sources of information.

HE photographs facing pages 104 and 105 are front and back views of a few of the rare old roses we have been able to identify in the country round about our Maryland farm. I submit them because I want to be correct, and if our deductions from the characteristics displayed are wrong, someone seeing the pictures may be able to set us right.

We have found many more old roses here than I ever expected-a hundred or more kinds, I think, without counting those which have not bloomed-and seem to be Hybrid Chinas, Hybrid Bourbons, and Hybrid Musks or Musks. They must wait for further study.

The research story is bound to be dry and uninteresting to some people, but actually it is as thrilling as any detective story ever written, only it is so much better because you, yourself, have to be the detective, and your material includes only sketchy descriptions in unfamiliar languages, your own observation, and the really superb illustrations of Redouté, Mary Lawrance, Miss Kingsley, Jamain and Forney, and other faithful artists of an older day, who devoted so much loving effort to render their subjects with meticulous fidelity.

I. NOISETTES

     Across St. Leonard's Creek from our farm is an old plantation where, long before the war of the states, there grew under the pantry window an old rose called the Faded Pink Monthly. Before the war, the cook took a cutting from this rose and grew it near her cabin door.

     During our searchings through old gardens in our part of Calvert County for old roses to grow on our place, Lillie, this cook's daughter, who is now our cook on the farm, showed us the way to the old plantation to see if we could get something from the original rose. It proved to be entirely gone-not a trace left. Years ago, Lillie had carried her mother's rose plant to her home when she married. It had suffered some during late years but had pulled along. A tough old dear! When we were disappointed in our search for the original, Lillie gave us her old rose, hesitatingly, as she thought it would die. So we acquired the rose grown by her mother before the war, a plant "slipped" before 1860. A wonderful gift!

     It was a very large, very woody stump with a sparse top. We pruned and planted it very carefully with shelter and old richness bedded below to coax it. The fine old grandmother rewarded our care so generously that during the summer of 1930 it grew ample top to furnish us with cuttings in November from which we have grown several new plants. One of these cuttings, with the autumn bloom of this year, is shown in the illustration facing page 104.

     To identify the Faded Pink Monthly teased us through many months of real study. All we surely knew was that it had a fragrance not like a China or Tea, that it resembled the China bloom, that it flowered in immense clusters, and that it was old.

     Carrying our notes and holding fast and hard to our descriptions of bush, foliage, bloom, and general habit, we made repeated visits to the New York Public Library, where we studied those beautiful volumes, "Les Roses," written by Thory and illustrated by Redouté. After we had run down the Chinas to repeated disappointment, for we thought it was some sort of China,-we went after the early Noisettes, the early ones which we had not known, our Noisette acquaintance, hitherto, having been confined to Maréchal Niel and other later varieties into which the Tea cross had been introduced.

     The story of the Noisette is interestingly told by the authors of 1817 to 1870. Mr. Nicolas has repeated it in his recent book, "The Rose Manual." He writes, "The Noisette has an interesting history since it probably is the first strain originated in America. By fertilizing the Musk variety, Rosa moschata alba, with the Bengal rose, John Champneys, of Charleston, S. C., obtained a variety called `Champneys' Pink Cluster.' A few years later, Philippe Noisette, from seeds of this variety, produced several perpetual-blooming hybrids which he sent to his brother in Paris under the name of `Noisette Roses'." Ellwanger in his book, "The Rose," says, "Louis Noisette received it about the year 1817. These roses, originally, had the characteristics in a great measure of the old Musk Rose, such as scent and a tendency to bloom in large clusters. The group is naturally of strong growth and nearly hardy." This blush Noisette of 1817 was called Le Rosier de Philippe Noisette by Thory and so painted by Redouté in "Les Roses."

     In "Les Roses," the Rosier de Philippe Noisette is thus described: The bush grew in France to 8 or 10 feet. (Four to 5 feet is the height attained by the Faded Pink Monthly so far in its career with us.) Branches are glabrous, with prickles quite strong, a bit crooked, red on the flowering shoots, brown on the old branches. Leaflets, 5 to 7, oval pointed, rarely obtuse, glabrous, green above, paler underneath, simply and finely serrate. Petioles velvety, armed with several little recurving prickles which extend onto the vein of the impaire or end leaflet, sometimes. Stipules are adnate with the petiole, bisected, pointed at end, toothed and glandulous on the edges. Flowers are lateral and terminal. The first to open are larger than the Musk Rose, the later ones a little less in size. They have a fragrance "très-suave." The flowers are rarely solitary, more often they come 3 or 6 together at the ends of the branching stems, where they unite in a sort of panicle often composed of a great quantity of flowers, even as many as 130, which develop successively and very well. The tube of the calyx is shaped like a little keg. The pedicels are covered with downy hairs or glands. The sepals are two entire and three provided with small simple pinnules. They are pointed at the end, downy inside, and edged with little sessile glands. (Faded Pink Monthly so far has never exceeded 30 in a cluster of bloom.)

     The corolla has 7 or 8 ranks of white petals washed with pink, a little yellow at the claw, irregularly indented at the top. Styles are free, with stigmas reddish making a salient pistil. The rose partakes of the China Rose in foliage, flowers, and period of bloom. It differs from' the Musk Rose by having free styles which in the Musk are joined in a column.

     With the exception of height and quantity of flowers in a cluster, this was the Faded Pink Monthly.

     In Redouté the text says the rose begins to bloom in July and blooms until frost. With us in southern Maryland, Faded Pink Monthly begins late in May, blooming until cut by frost.

     We noted a few facts not touched upon in the above description; An occasional flowering branch was found quite devoid of prickles; the unpaired leaflet was generally a bit longer than the paired; a few bracts were foliaceous, perhaps the result of rich feeding; the pedicels frequently were subarticulate or jointed. Comparing the odor with the Musk, we decided that the fragrance was musky.

     Because we were not completely satisfied, we went to other books. Boitard added to our description that the leaflets are sharply and simply toothed, with the serrations converging; that bracts, a noticeable feature in the bloom of Faded Pink Monthly, are linear, lauccolate, awl-shaped, glandular on the edges, and often inclined to drop off. He mentions that the inner petals of the flower are entire while the outer ones are notched.

     Cochet adds that the stipules are deeply toothed, like Rosa moschata, and that the leaflets are a "beau vert tendre." Other authorities state that thornless flowering shoots and jointed pedicels are found. Many speak of the Musk fragrance.

     It seems, with the Faded Pink Monthly so bravely meeting these fine points of description, deficient up to now only in ultimate height and size of cluster, we are justified in believing that this is a plant of Le Rosier de Philippe Noisette, 1817.

     Were there others somewhere? We went hunting. While we have not found another Faded Pink Monthly anywhere, our hunting has been good. We have one with white flowers coming in great clusters, pure white under the sun but often opening with a deep rose-colored, small, sharply marked center made by the rosy shanks of the petals. The books say Aimée Vibert is pure white. So be it. We are calling the white rose "St. Leonards" as we got it near the St. Leonards post office.

     On another old farm where there have been preserved a few old bushes, we found another which is a soft blush-pink, deeper in color than Faded Pink Monthly, a lovely rose which seems to keep its color to the end. Fortunately, it is a noble, sturdy bush. We are calling this one "Mrs. Skinner," the name of the lady from whom we bought the bush.

     And another is still deeper pink, more the color of the brighter blooms on an Old Blush China, with a white shank to the petals and having much less fulness of flower. There is a sporting chance that this may be R. noisettiana purpurea, Le Rosier Noisette à Fleurs Rouges. In "Les Roses" we find these notes: "In general the Rosa noisettiana with the rose-colored flowers* is smaller in all its features than the Rosier de Philippe Noisette, the Blush Noisette of 1817. Before expansion the Blush Noisette is flesh color which wears away in blooming to the point of becoming almost white, while the rose-colored variety has petals of `rose-vif which persists and becomes more intense by the time the petals fall. It blooms from June to frost."

     By observing throughout next summer we may be able to name this one, "Le Rosier Noisette à Fleurs Rouges," but for the present we are calling it Mrs. Malcolm Rorty because she found it. I regret that I have no photographs of the last two but they came into our midst too late for photographs of good bloom this year.

     These are especially delightful old roses with dainty, charming buds. They bloom successively and very freely in great, fragrant clusters. The bushes are neat and graceful, and their lovely blossoms seem full of life and spirit.

II. GALLICAS

     Judging from the present contents of some very old gardens, rose-growing was quite extensive in Calvert County, Maryland, during the Colonial and early Federal periods, when Gallica, Centifolia, Alba, Moss, Damascena, and the Briers were the popular forms of garden roses. On many of the oldest places we have repeatedly found the Pink Cabbage, a red variety with purple shadings called Bishop's Rose, Centifolia, by Mary Lawrance and Evêque, Gallica**, by Redouté, the very pale pink, flat-flowered Alba, Clustering Maiden's Blush, the old Pink Moss with cup-shaped bloom of deep rosy hue, the red Four Seasons, Damascena, not found so often as the others, old yellow Briers and the R. gallica officinalis, Apothecaries' Rose, locally known as the "Tulip Rose" and familiar to many by that name only.

     We found R. gallica officinalis, or Apothecaries' Rose, on our own place growing in a sort of shrubbery formed by many root-ramifications from an old rose now gone. Again we found it in an old orchard, running wild, far from the house but probably near where once had been a house and garden. We found it in an abandoned garden, formally laid out in a square adjoining the house, the entire garden made up of the very old sorts listed above.

     Thory, in the text of "Les Roses," with paintings by Redouté, says that R. gallica officinalis grows to 3 feet high and that it will vary in size of flowers according to the soil in which it is grown. We think this is true of height as well.

     Our rose is spreading, not entirely upright; prickles small, unequal, scattering, and not very strong; foliage oval, pointed, somewhat pendent, rather dry to touch, downy underneath, finely serrate; color a light green with an olivish shade. (The colored plate of this rose in Miss Kingsley's book, "Roses and Rose-Growing," shows this olivish green shade in the foliage. In "Les Roses," the description is "vert-clair.") The petiole is glandulous but has no prickles. Bloom is deep rose-pink, a color which may be described as the deepest shade of "rose-vif'" or a light spinel-red or a light rose-red. (Miss Kingsley's picture of the flower gives the same color as our rose.) The flower is semi-double, beautifully formed, enlivened by gleaming yellow stamens and a sizable pistil. There are two simple sepals, three compound. The blooms come singly or in twos, on strong hispid peduncles. Its seed-pod is round, large, orange to carmine. The effect of the blooming plant is lively in color and competent in form. It holds its strength well.

     In the article "Old World Roses" by Mr. Bunyard in the American Rose Annual for 1930, page 28, the author says that R. gallica officinalis, is, perhaps, the original rose of Provins. In "Les Roses" it is called "Rosier de Provins, ordinaire."

      Tradition has it that the Gallica rose was introduced into America from the Kip farm in the vicinity of New York City, where there was a fine rose-garden, and that Mr. Kip gave General George Washington a Gallica plant when he visited the farm after he became President of the United States. Tradition does not say that this was Washington's first Gallica, and one could hardly believe it to be, for it seems very probable that Gallica roses came into Virginia and Lord Baltimore's colony long before the Revolution. Our own place had a houseprobably a garden-in 1670. I am sure those early settlers had their Gallicas.

     The Red Gallica differs in points from the R. gallica officinalis. The bush goes to 3 feet plus and is much straighter. Its foliage seems a little crisper, although otherwise the same. The prickles are stronger. Its bloom is not so full, the stamens a bit tawny. There are two bold differences in petals and sepals. The heart-shaped petals are velvety red with blackish shadings, a deep rose-red. Sepals are foliated, as the picture of the back shows-a very pretty feature, indeed, against the back ring of petals. Its seed-pod is round, and orange-red. The shadings of the petals and the sepals mark the rose apart.

     In "Les Roses" is a picture by Redouté of the R. gallica, Maheka, Flore Simplici; La Maheka à Fleurs Presque Simples, or La Belle Sultane. It is a deep rose-red with blackish shadings on the edges, "échancrés en coeur" and has foliaceous sepals the same as our rose has. Thory says in the text that it is one of the best old Gallicas. Ours, in all likelihood, is La Belle Sultane.

     The Spotted Gallica probably is not of pure breed. Its growth is spreading enough to be called subprostrate. Foliage, prickles, stalks, and other features are good Gallica. The bloom is about the same size and fulness as the red variety. Its basic color is the deep rose of Officinalis, and the spots are a soft purple. This rose, however, breaks the line of its family by having a seed-pod, not round like Gallica but of a pear shape, strangled at the top like one form of Damascena and like some of the wild roses. It is orange-red, mounting to real red at the top, with a disk quite black, and has glandulous hairs about the upper part. We had several of these seeds, all alike, and we plan to grow them. Whatever we get will be interesting.

III. ROSE DU ROI À FLEURS POURPRES

     When trout-fishing one has sometimes to go through what I like to call "wallowing waters" which bother the head as well as the feet. We have had some wallowing waters to go through with this rose. It was not until we transplanted suckers and grew them in rich beds for all we could get that we made any progress.

     The original find was a group of about fifteen suckers and a remnant of the old plant in poor soil on an old planting-line on our own place. This old line evidently headed a series of "falls," the land from the hill-top where the old house stands being stepped away in wide terraces now washed and grass-grown, which in times past must have been part of an extensive artificial landscape, the "falls" dropping off to the east, south, and west, toward the water; interesting natural evidences but of no definite help in placing a date on a rose so found, yet suggestive.

     We have looked elsewhere for this rose and found it only once. This was on the Taney place on the Patuxent River, now the home of Benjamin Hance, Esq. Records of a will in Annapolis show that in 1708 one Benjamin Hance left this place to his heirs. The fine old house, the broad corn- and tobacco-fields along the river, have been scenes of lively social and political events in the past. It was the birthplace and boyhood home of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney,-an old place, well kept throughout its history. On this place are wellpreserved roses from earliest times. Among the suckers which Mr. Hance gave us was one plant of this rose. This is another early location with suggestive associations.

     Our notes and observations on this rose are as follows. In the poor location the bushes were about 3 feet in height. Transplanted suckers grew to 5 feet, maybe more. The bush is strong and upright, making a close, upstanding plant. Straight green stalks, reddish on the sunny side, with prickles both large and small, red, dilated at the base, sharp, straight and down slanting. We have not observed any prickles hooked enough to be called falcate. Foliage quite large, 3, 5, or 7 leaflets, longer than oval, not much pointed, with serrations mostly single, occasionally double, with a good deal of red shading in the green of the young growth; upper surface of the leaflets smooth, under surface lighter and downy, sometimes with reddish veins. Petiole rather fine and long for the leaflets, but strong and glandulous. Many petioles are without prickles but some have a few between the stipule and end leaflet. Stipule is adnate, two-pointed, glandulous. Bracts are broad and fleshy, single or two opposed, glandulous. Both stipules and bracts are foliaceous at times.

     At its best, the bloom is quite double, coming out cupped, later flattening and quartering somewhat, making a neat, showy, large flower, of strong, upright habit. The color is a deep rose, sometimes carmine, shaded with purple, with short white shanks and occasional white streaks. The velvety petals are notched and cordate in the outer ranks, smaller, folded and ribbed, neatly laid down on the inner lines, as the illustration shows. The stamens are orange-yellow. Pistil is free and made up of many styles. The flower grows on rather a short peduncle, green, strong, hairy, which conforms more and less into the calyx, as the calyx varies, a point we have observed often.

     From the above features, form of bush, green, upright stalk, peduncle, and so on, including autumn flowering of excellent form, one would expect the seed-pod to be an orange and red Damascena form. It has been and may be that, but perhaps more often is an orange-red, quite round hip, more like the Gallica. Few hips are well formed.

     The sepals, two simple and three compound or all foliaceous in form, do not reflex, as far as we have noted. At times there are six sepals instead of five. The fragrance is free and "oldtimey." The rose blooms all season. It propagates by suckers.

    We have spoken of this rose for more than two years as the "Brome Perpetual," naming it for Mrs. Brome from whom we bought Creek Side. We now believe that it is Rose du Roi à Fleurs Pourpres, a form of R. damascena portlandica.

     The classification of Damascena roses in "Les Roses" gives R. damascena coccinea, Rosier de Portland, which is sub-named R. (gallica) portlandica and R. (bifera) portlandica. We wonder if the great Thory had "wallowing waters" with the seed-pods that he gave both Gallica and Bifera sub-classifications. He lists Coccinea under this description, "Les tubes des calices sont renflés au milieu et comme amincis aux deux extrémités."

     We have this note from an article by Stephen F. Hamblin: "Modern garden roses owe much to Damask. The first R. gallica-damascena cross was made in England about 1800 and was called Duchess of Portland. 'Phis was once an impressive group-one hundred and thirty varieties-but has been lost since about 1850."

     Miss Lawrence's R. damascena, Red Monthly, shows many points of our rose as does R. damascena coccinea of Redouté, but neither is so double as our best blooms. There is, moreover, no shading of purple to be found in any Portland or Monthly in either work, so we have to close those great books at this point.

      In Jamain and Forney we have this: Portland, Rose du Roi. Bush quite vigorous; branches of medium thickness and straight; bark green, red on side to the sun, armed with little prickles, very numerous, unequal, very sharp. Foliage, "vertclair," lighter under, a little wrinkled, 5 to 7 leaflets, oblong, bordered with fine serrations. Petiole fine, long, pubescent, with no prickles. Flower, 7 to 9 centimeters, of a good form, upright, spreading, generally solitary, rarely two or three. Color, "beau-rouge-vif, carminé, à reflet violacé." Petals of the circumference large, obovate, with others smaller in proportion as they approach the center. Peduncle short with numerous glandulous hairs. Sepals foliaceous. Excessively remontant. Hardy. "Cette rose a été obtenue en 1819 par M. Souchet, jardinier du fleuriste de Sèvres, et n'a été livrée au commerce que quelques années plus tard. A cette époque M. le Comte Leleieur était directeur des jardins royaux et comme le fleuriste de Sèvres y'était employé, on lui a attribué par erreur l'honneur d'avoir obtenu cette magnifique variété."

     I have quoted the above especially for the dates. If this rose was originated in France in 1819, no doubt it was a cross on the English rose, the Portland, of 1800, known by Redouté.

     In his "Manuel Complet de l'Amateur de Roses," 1836, M. Boitard has the following. Under a general heading of Centifolia, he classes the Damascena, the Frankfort, the Belgique, etc., and from the Belgique he gets the Portland which differs from the Belgique (Damask) in certain features. He describes these: "Leurs rameaux, ordinairement très aiguillonnés, sont cependant presque inermes dans quelques variétés; leurs pédoncules sont plus courts et les feurs forment des corymbes fastigiés plus courts que les feuilles environnantes; le tube du calice a une base amincie, s'unissant insensiblement au sommet épaissi du pédoncule; les sépales égalent ou dépassent la longueur des pétales. Tous caractères qui ne se rencontrent pas dans les roses belgiques de race pure."

     Under this group are three, those which bloom more than twice, etc., and under this subgroup are three roses, Rose du Roi (Rose Leleiur), "rouge clair"; Perpetuelle, also "rouge;" and Philippe Premier, "d'un beau violet foncé."

     The Jamain and Forney rose and the Boitard rose, described above are the only purples under the Portlandica roses of those authors.

     Boitard says elsewhere that Rose du Roi sometimes has six sepals on the calyx.

     Rivers says, "It is asserted that Rose du Roi was raised from R. portlandica, a semi-double, bright-colored rose much like the rose known in this country as the Scarlet Four Seasons or R. poestana." Parkman says Mogador is a seedling from Rose du Roi and is, perhaps, an improvement. Parsons calls the Rose du Roi à, Fleurs Pourpres, Mogador. Rivers says that Rose du Roi à Fleurs Pourpres is the correct name for those with purple shadings and that Mogador, a name given by the French in memory of a battle with the Moors, is incorrect.

     We believe that our rose is Rose du Roi à Fleurs Pourpres, a brilliant, fragrant, handsome rose growing on a strong, enduring bush, a rose which is probably the ancestor of some of the dark Hybrid Perpetuals. To come to this has been a bewildering study, during which it has been difficult to keep our footing after the time of the Portlandica development in 1800. Some time, the purple and the greater fulness were bred in, before 1819. No one says a word about reflexing or non-reflexing of the sepals. Is it a Gallica hang-over?

     Consolation for being unable to settle such a detail may be gained from a note from Lindley. He says, in the introduction to his "Rosarum Monographia, 1830": "Pubescence on branches; peduncles, and tube of the calyx, is the only invariable character I have discovered in roses."

*The seeming inconsistency in translation here in due to a disagreement between Thory's text and Redouté's picture. Thory calls the rose "R. noisettiana purpurea, à fleurs roses," but the accompanying plate is titled "R. noisettiana purpurea à fleurs rouges," but they are evidently meant to apply to the same rose.--EDITOR.
**But Redouté also says it is called Grand Eveque in amateurs' gardens.--EDITOR

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