One of my cuttings (originally bagged February 12, 2021) has just put out its first flower. Not much scent at all. Pleasant enough, but fairly faint. I'm not sure if this is due to the small size of the plant (about 40 cm) but it's definitely not a strong or even moderate scent at this stage.
I had the same experience. My first bloom from a cutting-grown plant had a really refined, sweet fragrance with hints of freesia but it was quite faint most of the time. It seems that the quality of the scent is there but not the quantity, at least for me with its first flower. I hope it improves too because I liked the scent.
Getting some more blooms now, on more developed plants, and scent seems to be better. I still wouldn't call it strong (mild to moderate, depending how good your nose is) but it is very pleasant.
I wouldn't call the scent strong either but it is moderately strongish for Tea Rose standards. It's very nice though and it has helped convince me, besides other factors, that this foundling is in fact 'Mme. de Watteville'.
If you search for Mme de Watteville, it comes up with: Tea. White, salmon-pink shading, pink edges. [Cream, pink edges.]. Strong fragrance. Large, double (17-25 petals), borne mostly solitary, cupped, flat, ruffled bloom form. Blooms in flushes throughout the season. USDA zone 6b through 9b (default). Margaret Furness. I don't want to take Guillot's credit!
'Madame de Watteville' rose photo Photo courtesy of HubertG Name: Madame de Watteville Availability: Commercially available Synonyms: • "Kombacy Marianne":
HMF Ratings: 9 favorite votes. ARS: White, near white or white blend Tea. Origin: Bred by Jean-Baptiste André (fils) Guillot (1827-1893) (France, 1883). Introduced in Australia by C. F. Newman and Sons - Adelaide in 1894 as 'Madame de Watteville'.
This is an error caused by a discrepancy between this plant's summary vs detail information which "should" never differ. We'll take a look to see how it happened in this case.
patricia, might you add one feature that was reported by mr. jäger in his 'rosenlexikon' of 1936 referring to it as having blooms in the tulip style. and it has, indeed! from a distance these cupped and more elongated flowers with their nearly cavernous center can look like a bunch of tulips when not fully expanded.
I've written to the institution asking for permission to upload the photo but at this stage they haven't given a definite answer. If they do say it's OK I'll certainly post it here.
It is a very distinctive style, you can understand what they mean about it being called the 'Butterfly Rose' with those large reflexed outer petals. For what it's worth, just looking at all the photos of 'Kombacy Marianne', it really doesn't seem to be the same as Mme de Watteville'. Well, no one has posted opening buds looking like this, in any case.
OK, you'd know better than myself. I haven't grown it. It just didn't look like it overall to me from the photos. There's also a few good plates of Mme Hoste (probably the best I've seen) so I do hope they let us upload them.
Maybe someone could post some photos of Kombacy Marianne in that early bud stage showing that formation in the Lincoln photo.
John Hook identified "Kombacy Marianne" as being the same as the Mme de Watteville from the Fineschi collection. I don't know the provenance of the Fineschi rose.
I suspect that this 'Mme de Watteville' photographed by Edwin Hale Lincoln was a florist grown rose that he purchased for the occasion. The other roses he photographed in a similar fashion were Perle des Jardins, Sunset, Mme Hoste and the Bride, which all seem to be the popular glasshouse roses at the time. There is a Mrs Pierpont Morgan too - a haven't noticed that in particular being a florist rose but it was probably available. I'm only speculating here. Maybe he grew them all, but if his Mme de Watteville was grown in a glasshouse, perhaps the form shown in the photograph isn't typical of an open ground grown rose.
Just reporting in on the Edwin Hale Lincoln photograph of 'Mme de Watteville'. They've just got back to me and unfortunately the committee who manages the collection advise that they can't let us upload the actual photos here, but are happy to allow links to the rose photos in the collection.
I'll try to link everything in the next day or so. They are certainly worth looking at.
