What Greater Delight?
By MRS. FREDERICK L. KEAYS, Great Neck, L. I., N. Y.

From the 1936 American Rose Society Annual pgs. 15-22

EDITORS' NOTE.-Elsewhere in this Annual there is printed a review of Mrs. Keays' delightful book, "Old Roses," which is the real authority upon these flowers of yesteryear. That work gives a reason for her quest, and ought to encourage a form of what might be called reverse novelty seeking. In the essay that follows, this Lady of the Old Rose takes us with her to gardens that have age, history, dignity. To the Editor she recalls his mother's roses of the garden and his father's pets of the nursery and greenhouse that were back of that home-garden. Memories rise, scents and colors are recalled, even locations remembered, of those days when there was no dream of Breeze Hill, no suspicion of an American Rose Society. There is one existent precious link-a copy of Ellwanger's "The Rose," in its first edition of 1882, and dated on the fly-leaf May 31, 1887, in which are certain pencil memoranda made by the Editor's rose-loving father, giving his experiences.

HAT greater delight," asks our old garden friend John Gerard of Queen Elizabeth's day, in "The Herball or General Historie of Plants" (1597),--"What greater delight is there than to behold the earth apparelled with plants as with. a robe of imbroidered worke set with orient pearles and garnished with great diversitie of rare and costly jewels?" And what greater delight have we in our own day than to visit fine gardens, large or small, modern or old, and behold our own land wearing its "robe of imbroidered worke"! Such pleasures are ours for the taking.

     For a fee devoted to charity or other good purpose, we may visit many a notable modern garden, "apparelled with beautiful plants," to which we are attracted by a landscaping problem or the form and content of the flower garden itself, or by some feature lavishly carried out, like sweeps of dancing daffodils in naturalized plantings among white birch trees, a famous collection of oriental flowering cherries and plums, more than a hun-dred varieties of lilacs, a rose-garden planted in color gradations,. and an intensively planted rock-garden.

     In one handsome garden, comprising a group of specialized gardens, "garnished with great diversitie," at times open for a charity benefit, everything lovely in the way of planting grows at its best. We have visited in this garden to see the display of tulips, the rainbows of iris, the rock-gardens, the herbaceous borders; lately to see the roses again. The pleasure we have here is in knowing both the owner and the professional in charge. A morning with him such as we enjoyed on this recent visit is something to remember. Added to that we had the surprise of finding in the rose-garden what our searching eye is always roving for, old roses--old roses cherished for sentiment.

     This lovely rose-garden, with a background of fine trees, is in the simple form of a rectangle. An elevated stage with pillars faces from one end a grass-plot large enough to seat a hundred guests among roses. Ell-shaped beds of Hybrid Teas cut into the corners of the grass carpet. Below the stage is a long border of Etoile de Hollande, "the best red rose so far." On all four sides of the grass-plot runs a path, while on the two long sides and the end facing the stage, are wide borders of bush roses, backed by lattices covered with climbing roses and clematis-- the large-flowered clematis hybrids with blooms in exquisite shades of cream, pink, lavender, and purple. In the flush of June this is a heavenly spot, and such it was on our particular Saturday morning. The fine discovery was that in these borders have been preserved the older roses of past gardens. As the estate is now many decades old, and has always been kept in prime cul-ture, these old roses are in excellent condition.

     When we had embarrassed our host by repeating, "What rose is. this?" and "What rose is this?", he explained.

     "I remember that these are the roses I used to grow on places in England, but I've forgotten their names."

     Recognizing some of the more familiar ones, knowing nothing about others, we went through the borders making a classification to June-blooming Centifolias and Albas, everblooming Teas, Hybrid Perpetuals (which are by far the greater number), and early Hybrid Teas. Later we took to the old books which tell us about so many hundreds of roses and so little about any one. So far we have made out only the following few: Duchesse de Brabant, T., a pink cup brimming with fragrance, our only named Tea among several; of Hybrid Perpetuals-Anna de Diesbach, carmine-pink, large and fragrant; Baroness Rothschild, pink also, but softer in shade, more orderly in shape, but scentless; her white sport, Merveille de Lyon, slightly shaded with rose and slightly scented, from which came Fran. Karl Druschki, also present, so chaste and so scentless; Paul Neyron, unbelievably large, full, a deep rose-pink and somewhat fragrant, belonging to the same general group of Hybrid Perpetuals as Anna de Diesbach and Baroness Rothschild, as does the soft pink, finely shaped, exceedingly perfumed Mrs. John Laing.

     Old General Jacqueminot we found here, of course, so glowing and so sweet. Two other red roses deserve a word. One is a full dark purple beauty, shaped like a shallow cup, each petal having below its purple a band of brilliant crimson, and beyond that a white shank. This may be Empereur du Maroc, and again it may not, as there were three or four crimson and purple roses in the Empereur group. The red of the second purple-shaded rose glows in the sun like one of those little red lights with a candle burning in it which we see on little shrines. The purple is patched onto the red regularly throughout the globular bloom. When such roses of the Hybrid Perpetual family lose their names, the beholder is in a bad way to assign them. Along with these two we have to pass a handsome full rose of glistening white, and call it just an unknown white rose.

     By joining a tour and paying a fee devoted to the restoration of some Virginia memorial, we may as strangers visit the mature and reminiscent gardens important in our Colonial and Federal periods; have a cup of tea under an ancient white oak or a willow grown from a slip brought from the river Jordan; see plantings of roses carried to the estate by a bride of the Carter family as in a place famous for its box hedges and avenues deployed over a well-preserved large garden. Roses are not blooming at pilgrimage time, but we learn that the roses Ann Carter brought in 189.0 include such interesting old sorts as Champney's Pink Cluster, first cross of the Musk rose and Old Blush China, made in Charleston in 1817 and parent of the Noisette roses, itself very pale pink and heavily clustering and now very rare; the blush Seven Sisters, developing several shades in its clusters, and not so rare; Old Blush China, often called Pink Daily, very old, always cherished for its freedom of flowering and not rare at all; and La Tourterelle, or Dove Rose, so called because of its lilac-pink, dove-like color. Probably other brides added roses of their times, for a sort of period sequence is evident. Roses of the 1840's include the early Hybrid Perpetual La Reine, large and somewhat lilac-pink; Dr. Marx, red; Baronne Prévost, pure rose-color. Then comes a group of the '60's and '70's, and later roses belonging to the turn of the century.

     The little gardens of no great importance, often very per-sonal and very choice, even odd at times, are to be entered only upon the privilege of friendship. An honest interest in the grow-ing things therein is the fee. Climbing over the wooden structure about an old well in a little garden is a fine plant of that one-time favorite, Baltimore Belle, produced from our native Rosa setigera, as was another even greater favorite, Queen of the Prairies, the latter deep pink to rose in color, full, cupped and fragrant, often bearing, as a distinguishing mark, a white stripe down each petal, flowering in clusters and long-lasting in bloom. These are the only two much remembered of what was a group of fifteen or twenty nearly a hundred years ago. The native deep rose-pink R. setigera is well worth having. I find it very pleasing in foliage and in its midsummer bloom.

     Perhaps the most unexpected delight in a little garden, so far, was flashed over us on a visit for the purpose of seeing the old Tea, Cornelia Cook, in a burst of bloom. After a pleasant greeting from a charming, tall, graying lady, we passed through a garden gate. A high picket fence enclosed both flower and vegetable gardens. Beyond lay wide fields of corn and tobacco.

     On the way was a great show of the oldest of the Multifloras, discovered in Japan by Thunberg more' than a hundred years ago, which climbed over the pickets, making a close, blossoming screen of tiny white single and pale pink double roses.

     Some day the virtues of these roses will be made much of. It is written that in 1865 Robert Fortune, that great English plant hunter, brought from Japanese gardens a variant of this rose made by crossing it with a China or a Tea, in which the climbing inclination of the June-flowering Multiflora gave way to a bush form, while the roses, retaining their miniature size, both single and double, became everblooming. Other crossings were introduced, and these earliest of the Polyanthas had quite a vogue under such fascinating names as Paquerette, Mignonette, Anne Marie de Montravel, and so on.* Now they have almost disappeared from gardens and are out of commerce.

     Having enjoyed the Multifloras, we proceeded toward Cornélia Cook with many hesitations and exclamations, for this garden is a treasure house of rare old things which hold us breathless as we try to write about them. Cornelia Cook, raised by Anthony Cook, of Baltimore, in 1855, when the namejwas "Cornelie Koch," is a white Tea, sometimes faintly yellow, very large and full, in its day surpassing all other white Teas, even its parent Devoniensis-possibly yet! It is somewhat reticent about blooming. Here we saw our admired Souvenir d'un Ami, a Tea of excellent outline, texture, and form, its rose-pink color illumined by a salmon glow; Elise Sauvage, a dainty yellow Tea with copperish center, globular in form; Mlle. Franziska Krüger, a peachy pink with soft shades of sunset and twilight lavender; Perle des Jardins, another yellow Tea, full like Franziska but having much copper and a little pink in the center; and Safrano, that early buffy apricot Tea, so lovely in the opening bud, for long known as the Tea rose. Nor is this all, for several equally charming remain among the unnamed. We recognized Souvenir de la Malmaison, Bourbon, soft pearly flesh-pink, large, quite flat, quartered in form, strong on its stem; and Hermosa, that sweet, small, full, China-pink rose beloved by everyone who knows it; while other Bourbons and strange Chinas are keeping their names as their own secrets.

     Never before have we seen really old dahlias. Simple red, white, and pink, single and double dahlias belonging to the past-before the dahlia became an exploited flower-are preserved here and loved for family associations. They were growing in a line of their own, intermingled with plantain lilies (funkias), with such good faithful flowers as old-fashioned pinks, spider-wort, lavender, and broom. The true sweet lavender grows into free-blooming woody bushes in this land of tobacco and has been used since the days of the colony for sweetening the linen presses. Of it one old book says: "Boyle it in water and wett thy shirt in it and dry it again and weare it.".

     We find we may visit distant gardens by way of letters. The fee is a postage stamp and the delight is in finding old-rose lovers who take pleasure for themselves in this championship of old roses. What fun it would be to take the sky-way routes and wing in upon our correspondents in their gardens! In Texas, Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio; in Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut; in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia; in Georgia and North Carolina, especially in Burke County; in Missouri, Louisiana, and in California. We wonder what other flower has such a wide distribution as the old rose!

     In our correspondence gardens we find a lively assortment of "lovesome" old things. From Arizona comes a picture of a Yellow Banksia spread over an arbor like a grape-vine, with space beneath for tables and chairs--"a pleasant paradise." On a ranch in Arizona Harison's Yellow and Red Boursault have a place in the house-yard. These are two greatly traveled roses. Early settlers into the Southwest carried Harison's Yellow. The settlers in Missouri planted it on many homesteads. Our corre-spondent got her Harison bush from an old rose brought to Prescott in the '70's from Texas, where this rose has been so long localized that it goes by the name of "Texas Rose."

     The Red Boursault has a different story. Carried from New Jersey in the '60's by the bride of a territorial governor, this rose was grown about the log-cabin which became the governor's mansion. According to the tale, the long journey to Prescott was made by boat around Cape Horn to San Francisco, and overland to Prescott. "Here it (the rose) was planted and thrived, althb the bride soon faded and died." Some day we hope this Boursault will send a shoot to the East, where it will be planted among fellow roses with a history and will be known by the name it bears in Prescott --"the McCormick Rose."

     From Arkansas we hear about the old Red Damask rose, carried west from Tennessee. Probably this is the red Gallica, called often Red Damask and Damask Rose, just about double, rose-red with golden stamens, a gay, fragrant rose in the June garden--old as early New England and Virginia--so old in England that it is believed by some writers to have been the rose of the House of Lancaster in the Wars of the Roses--so old before that that it is lost in antiquity. Red Gallica has been an inveterate traveler and lives tenaciously in many parts of the country. The double white rose, Rosa Alba flore-pleno, rose of the House of York in the Wars of the Roses, we hear about from Massachusetts to Kansas, in between and beyond. The rose-red and flesh-white striped Gallica, Rosa Mundi, often called "York and Lancaster," we find far afield.

     Microphylla rubra, a tough bush with minute foliage and wicked prickles, bearing large, flat, rose-red blooms with pale pink edges, the "burr rose" of the upper South, grows in Arkansas as does a plant of the white, miniature, everblooming Multiflora which moved out from Virginia sixty years ago.'

     From many scattered parts of the country come expressions of praise and affection for the Sweet Brier of scented foliage and single pink bloom-the Eglantine of Gerard and Shakespeare and the great queen, the subject of Herrick's verse,

"From this bleeding hand of mine,
Take this sprig of Eglantine,
Which though sweet unto your smell,
Yet the fretful bryar will tell,
He who plucks the sweets shall prove
Many thorns to be in love."

     In North Carolina old roses seem' to have enjoyed a blessed attention, and almost everything found elsewhere has :been preserved in gardens there. Something different is the "Hornet's Nest Rose." That is a name for a rose! It is a pink climber, said to be so called because of the way it arranges its clusters. The letter about it ends with a wish: "I wish you lived close enough to take the dirt road that leads to our house. I know you would enjoy the roses." Having a passion for dirt roads and grassy lanes, we murmur, "What greater delight?"

     Among our treasured possessions are fourteen long envelopes, each containing a dried specimen of a North Carolina 'old-fashioned rose, sent us a year ago from another garden. On the outside of No. 7 is written, "Very double pink climber. The Cabbage Rose. My mother obtained it from Waldensians (Italian Presbyterians at Valdese, N. C., 8 miles from our home). They called it `Hornet's Nest Rose."'

     Another envelope contains â blooming spray' of the rose Viridiflora, its full bloom just as green as its China-like foliage. In another is the richly crimson, velvety, double Agrippina or Cramoisi Supérieur of the bush form. (The rarer climbing form is growing in Texas.) A pink Moss is marked as being "monthly" --a big order for a Moss rose! The clustering, full, pink Salet is fairly recurrent, enough so to justify the designation "perpetual" if that word be considered to mean "should bloom in autumn but probably will not." What looks like the most interesting rose of the lot is one marked "Pride of France." The dried branchlet tenaciously hanging together, bears a cluster of four roses and buds with a hangover of rich red color. About the name, Pride of France, there is among the old rose books a depressing silence. Possibly the name is not correct. As the French word "gloire" may be translated as "Pride," possibly this may be one of the roses, Gloire de France.

     The identification of a rose called Gloire de France came up about two years ago. A Bourbon rose producing fine large richly rose-colored flowers and "although an old variety continues to be much esteemed" was described in the lists of the American growers, Prince (1846), Parsons (1856), and Buist (1844). It had several names--Mme. Neumann, Mme. Dubreuil, Lebrun, Gloire de France, Rose d'Amour, Monthly Cabbage--making the question of identifications about impossible, as these syno-nyms do not check elsewhere. There were, moreover, two other Gloire de France roses, one a Gallica with a bright rose-colored, full bloom having a pale edge--a variety we think we found in northern New York State; the other a Hybrid Perpetual in 1853, described by William Paul (1863) as having deep red, large, full flowers of compact form on a moderate bush. The glory of France seems to have been pretty well emphasized about the middle of the nineteenth century!

     One day a highly fragrant, deep rose-red bloom with about an inch of stem arrived from Mexico, quite dead and pressed flat but delicious in real rose perfume. It bore the haunting name, "Recuerdos" or "rose of memories"! : Even now, months later, it emits a fragrance. As we look at it and smell it, we wonder what richly colored, many-petaled, scented rose of old Spanish days lent its perfume and radiance to romance and "recuerdos."

     This visiting of gardens--"apparelled with plants as with a. robe of imbroidered worke"--has carried us afar and delighted us greatly. "But these delights are in the outward senses," says our John Gerard; "the principal delight is in the minde singularly enriched with the knowledge of these visible things . . . ."

*Here comes in a memory of early rose experiences, when all these roses were real and admired novelties is my father's garden.-EDITOR.

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