'Mme Plantier'. alba hybrid?
me. Plantier entered my garden through a
trade during the fall of 1998. And I traded, what I thought, was another
Madame: 'Mme. Pierre Oger'. In fact, I traded an imposter, rather the sporting
parent of 'Mme. Pierre Oger', the very beautiful Bourbon 'Reine Victoria'. It
was sold to me by a reputable supplier who should have known better. I have
since traded roses and obtained what I hope to be the real 'Mme. Pierre Oger'.
Time will tell as my small Bourbon matures and reveals its identity. Now back
to the other Madame.
'Mme. Plantier' is one of the most frequently
recommended roses for shade, and most references tout her as one of the
toughest and disease free old garden rose. Mine is planted by the corner of the
house where it receives half day sun, maybe a little more. It is indeed very
hardy, with virtually no dieback whatever, the canes remaining green and viable
to the very tips. Her canes are thin, wiry, with few thorns. After two years in
the ground, she is four to five feet high and wide. Lots of dark green leaves
cover the shrub and show virtually not a trace of disease. This is one rose I
have not sprayed for blackspot the past two seasons.
Plump buds form in
mid-May and lead one to believe that the Madame is going to bear red or pink
blooms. Yet when opened they reveal the a pure white flower with merely a hint
of blush in near the center. A green button-eye ties the center of the rose
together, as it were. 'Mme. Plantier' possesses a wonderful, sweet fragrance.
No hips.
'Mme. Plantier' has been rather elusive in its classification
by authors and rose experts. Early on it was referred as a Hybrid China. It has
also been classified as a Bourbon, a Noisette, Climbing Noisette, and Damask.
kbk 2001 February 21
It is interesting to note that Robert Buist in his book The Rose Manual, 1859, includes 'Madame Plantier' in his chapter entitled "Hybrid Chinese Roses":
"HYBRID CHINESE ROSES. Until within a few years this division of the rose was entirely unknown. It has originated from seeds of the Bengal, Tea, and Bourbon roses, impregnated with pollen from the Provins, Damask, Centifolia, and other sorts that bloom only once in the season. The progeny is greatly improved in growth, foliage, color, and form of flowers, but deficient in the ever-blooming tendency of one of the parents. This deficiency, however, is amply made up by the great beauty of the flower, its habit, and diversity of brilliant colors. They present a combination of the grand and beautiful, which must be seen to be fully realized. For pillars and trellising, they are not surpassed; the wood of many of them is very luxuriant, growing six to ten feet in a season; the foliage, too, is always agreeable, being generally of a rich glossy green. Others are dwarf, and very compact in their habits; in fact, they offer every shade of color (none yellow, I believe) from white to almost black; every variety of growth from one foot upward. Some of them seed abundantly, and there is no end to the variety that may be produced. The great difficulty will be in choosing the best. If the French growers would only extirpate from their seed-beds every plant that did not produce flowers of perfect distinction and symmetry, our perplexity would be greatly diminished; but instead of retaining only such, they introduce to our notice some distinguished title with a rose not worth the name."
"Madame Plantier, very pure white, perfectly double, in profuse clusters, and early bloomer, and very desirable"
Samuel B. Parsons lists 'Mme. Plantier' in the chapter "Roses That Blooom Only Once In The Season":
"Garden Roses. For want of a better, we use this term to designate all those roses that bloom only once in the season, and that strongly resemble each other in habit and flower. It includes those classes called, by rose-growers, French, Provence, Hybrid Provence, Hybrid China, Hybrid Bourbon, White and Damask Roses.
....Many roses, moreover, are classed as hybrids which are not truly such. We are quite inclined to think that a large number of the varieties supposed to have been produced by hybridizing are nothing more than the natural produce, and that the pollen, in many cases, has not impregnated the pistil to which it was applied.
Madame Plantier, H.C.--A cupped and double pure white rose. It is a luxuriant grower, a most abundant bloomer, and one of the very best of the white summer roses. Its foliage is so marked in its richness and beauty that any one can readily distinguish is by that alone. Were it Remontant, it would possess all the requisite of a perfect white rose."
Samuel B. Parsons, Parsons On The Rose: A Treatise on the Propagation, Culture, and History of the Rose, 1883.
Here is an example of conflicting information one occasionally finds in books or other references. Perhaps there was a repeat blooming Bourbon that went by the name 'Mme. Plantier'?? This is from a section on Pillar Roses in the book Rose Gardening by Mary Hampden, published in 1921:
"MADAME PLANTIER. Bourbon. White, medium size, a great grower, double, and continuous blooming."
"Mme. Plantier, 1835, "the dear, profuse and graceful Mme. Plantier: says Barbara in "The Garden, You and I," is the only rose we have know classed as a Hybrid Noisette. Now we read in Mr. Stevens' new book, "Climbing Roses, " that Mme. Plantier's parentage seems to be R. alba crossed with R. moschata and Madame is more Alba than Musk. She is due, on that finding, to a new classification. The pure white, large, full, sweetly scented, rather flattish flowers, coming in such large and so many clusters that the bush is showered with bloom, is, or should be, in everyone's garden. As an outdoor rose, this sure, hardy, vigorous white variety has no superior when grown as a spreading arching bush."
--Ethelyn Emery Keays, 1935, Old Roses
"MME. PLANTIER--The Noisettes, Hybrid Chinas, and Damasks have all claimed this famous rose, but it is now thought to be a hybrid of R. alba, and quite possibly a cross between R. alba and R. moschata. Originated by Plantier in 1835. The clustered flowers are small and very double, slightly fragrant, creamy white changing to pure white. It grows to 5 feet, and is extremely hardy and long lived. A very popular rose for cemetery planting during the latter part of the nineteenth century, and many fine specimens can still be found in cemeteries in the United States and Canada. A remarkable hybrid that might have been valuable in rose development were it not sterile. It has been used to some extent as an understock."
--Roy E. Shepherd, 1954, History of the Rose.
"Madame Plantier has been listed for years amongst the Noisettes; but there seems to be some doubt about which family it really belongs to. Some class it as an alba x moschata, other as damask x moshata, and still other as noisette x moschata. It has always been summer-flowering only, unlike other Noisettes; but this year one of our plants produced autumn flowers, as has another summer-flowering rose, the lovely Alba, Madame Legras de Saint Germain. Many well-known writers of the last century, and Edward A. Bunyard in this century, list Madame Plantier as a Noisette. Whatever its ancestry, it is a glorious rose, healthy, non-thorny, with attractive, soft, lettuce-green leaves, and pink-tinted buds, the beauty of which is enhanced by the long, leafy calyx-lobes. The clusters of medium-sized, double, white flowers have a green eye, the outer petals reflexing back in a most attractive manner. When the bushes flanking either side of one entrance to our white garden are in full bloom, the thin, whippy branches are weighted down with the multitude of flowers.
Given the support of a trellis or a tree, Madame Plantier will climb and cascade down in a graceful manner. An illustration of this can be seen in Graham Thomas' book, The Old Shrub Roses. This photograph was taken at Sissinghurst Castle; and we were fortunate when we visited this famous garden, to see the same plants climbing through the trees in the orchard. Although the rose is not perpetual-blooming, the flowers do appear in profusion over a period of at least eight weeks, filling the garden with scent and admired by all who see them. Madame Plantier was recommended as a hedge plant by the American writer, A. B. Ellwanger in his book The Rose; and since its introduction in 1835 it has received a warm welcome in many countries. Out here in New Zealand it is to be found in the earliest cemeteries, by the roadsides, and in old gardens; and in one country district, where there are great frothing bushes of it growing wild, it is referred to as the Bride's Rose. We heard also of Madame Plantier in Poverty Bay, growing on the site of an early homestead which had been destroyed by fire. It had been grazed over and trampled down by horses for fifteen years--and still survived. More recently a Nelson old-rose collector found it growing beneath tall pines in a neglected hillside cemetery at Collingwood, near the mouth of the Aorere River, where the third New Zealand gold-field was opened up"
--Nancy Steen, 1966, The Charm of Old Roses.
"The only variety so far recognized as a Noisette hybrid is Mme. Plantier, a bushy, floriferous familar rose. Shoots are slender and branching; foliage is rather small, light green in color. Blooms, coming in clusters, are not very large, full, creamy on opening, soon going purely white. R. alba might be an ancestor. So, possibly might be Aimèe Vibert, Noisette."
--Mrs. Frederick L. Keays, 1941, "Studying the Old Roses" in Amercian Rose Annual.
"Die when I may, I always want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow"
Abraham Lincoln
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