The Hybrid Perpetual Roses - A Survey by L. Arthur Wyatt. RNRS Rose Annual 1981

Part 4 - References.

References
The main sources for this survey are as follows:

On Origins:
Belmont, Abel; Dictonaire historique de la Rose (1896)
Bosanquet, A. H.; The Tree Rose (1845)
Cant, Benjamin R.; Catalogue of Roses, Season 1858-59
Hurst, Dr C. C.; Notes on the Origin and Evolution of Our Garden Roses (RHS journal, Vol LXVI, 1941)
Leroy, André; “Les Roses-un livre oublié” (Les Amis des Roses, Nos 300-302 1969-70)
Loddiges, Conrad & Sons; Catalogue of Plants, 13th edn (1823)
Mawley, Edward; How I Began Rose Growing (Rose Annual 1916)
Paris, Clark D. & Maney, T. J.; A condensed history and classification of the Genus Rosa (Journal of Iowa State Agric. Exp. Stn. 1943)
Pemberton, Rev J. H.; Roses, their History, Development and Cultivation, 2nd edn 1920
Paul, William; The Rose Garden, 1st (1848)
Rivers, Thomas; Rose Amateur’s Guide, 3rd edn (1824)
Shepherd, Roy E.; History of the Rose (1954)
Thory, Claude-Antoine; Les Roses; text of 2nd edn (1824)
Wilson, E. J.; The Vineyard Nusery, Hammersmith (1961)
Wylie, Ann P.; The History of Garden Roses Part 1 9RHS Journal, Vol LXXIX N° 12 Dec 1954)

On development:
Cochet, Pierre C. M. (ed); Journal des Roses (1877-1914)
Cranston, John; Cultural Directions for the Rose 5th edn (1875), 7th edn (1888)
Darlington, Hayward R.; A Study of Form in the Rose (Rose Annual 1918)
The National Rose Society 1876-1926 (Rose Annual 1926)
The Gold Medal Roses 1883-1918 (Rose Annual 1932)
Easlea, Walter; Reminiscences (Rose Annual 1935)
Ellwanger, Henry B.; The Rose 2nd edn rev (1901)
Foster-Melliar, Rev A.; The Book of the Rose (1894)
Hibberd, Shirley; The Amateur’s Rose Book (1874)
Hill, E. Gurney; My Lifetime with Roses (American Rose Annual 1931)
Hole, Dean S. Reynolds; A Book about Roses 1st edn (1869) 2nd edn (1870) 8th edn (1884)
Nicolas, Dr Jean H.; A Rose Odyssey (1937)
Paul, A. & Son; Rose Catalogues 1841-1922
Paul, William; The Rose Garden var edns 1863-1903
Contributions to Horticultural Literature 1843-1892
Paquet, Victor & Rouillard, Charles; Choix de Plus Belles Roses (text) (1854)
Societé Nationale d’Horticulture de France; Les plus Belles Roses (1912)
Soames, Arthur G.; Memories (Rose Annual 1928)
Wyatt, L. A.; The Famous Frau (The Rose Vol 10 N° 4 (1962)
A Successful Soldier (The Rose Vol 12 N° 2 (1963))
Young, Norman; The Complete Rosarian (1971)

On downfall:
Darlington, H. R.; Symposium on 24 Best Roses for General Cultivation (Rose Annual 1910)
Harkness Jack L.; Roses (1978)
Jekyll, Gertrude & Mawley, E.; Roses for English Gardens (1902)
Mawley, Edward; Rose Analysis 1907 (Rose Annual 1908); Rose Analysis 1902-1909 (Rose Annual)
Paul, Arthur W.; Some recent varieties of roses (1909)
Paul, William; Roses and Rose Culture 7th edn (1892)
Pemberton, Rev J. H.; Modern Development of the Rose (Conference Address 1912) (Rose Annual 1913)
The Passing of the Hybrid Perpetual (Rose Annual 1925)
Robinson William; The English Flower Garden 7th edn (1899) (Preface to article on Roses)

On revival:
Bartrum, Douglas; Some old Roses (The Rose Vol 1 N°4 1953)
Beales, Peter; Georgian and Regency Roses; Early Victorian (1979) (text)
Brooke, Humphrey; The Rosarium of Sangerhausen (Rose Annual 1975)
Fletcher, Geoffrey; Old Roses (The Rose Vol 4 n°4 1956)
Harkness R. & Co.; Rose List (1968) Rose Guide (1968) Rose Catalogues 1965-et seq.
Hollis, Leonard; Symposium on Twelve Best Bourbon and Hybrid Perpetual Roses (Rose Annual 1980)
James, Rosemary; The Hearty Hybrid Perpetuals (the Rose Vol 15 n°2 1967)
Longley, Geo. & Sons; Rose Catalogues 1953-et seq.
Rowley, Gordon D.; The Rediscovery of lady Mary Fitzwilliam (The Rose Vol 14 N° 1 1965)
Tenner, Howard J.; A Survey of Hybrid Perpetuals (American Rose Annual 1951) and private correspondence 1971-76
Thomas, Graham S.; Roses as Flowering Shrubs var. edns 1948-98; The Manual of Shrub Roses 2nd edn (1958), 3rd edn (1962), 5th edn (1967); Shrub Roses for To-day (1962)
Thomson, Richard; Old Roses For Modern Gardens (1959)
Vonholdt, Hans; Das Rosarium Sangerhausen (1966) Rosenverzeichnis Rosarium Sangerhausen 2 Auflage (1970) (with Täckleburg, Paul); 3 Auflage (1976) (Lang, Ingomar & Täckleburg, P.)

General References:
Jäger, August; Rosenlexikon (completed 1936 publ. 1960)
McFarland, J. Horace; Modern Roses 6 (1965); Modern Roses 7 (1969)
Simon, Léon, & Cochet, Pierre; Nomenclature de tous les roses 2nd edn (1906)

The Hybrid Perpetual Roses - A Survey by L. Arthur Wyatt. RNRS Rose Annual 1981

Part 2

Development
In the face of the sterility barrier, raising roses with desirable qualities of large, pleasantly coloured blooms on vigorous plants that repeated in autumn was a slow business. However, as Laffay is reported to have raised upwards of 200,000 seedlings in a season, the sheer scale of the operation was bound to meet with success. The first of any merit was ‘Princesse Hélène’ (of Luxembourg) sent out in 1837. Described as a rosy purple globular bloom, flowering profusely when established, it lasted in cultivation fat which he was or almost half a century. Laffay was an astute business man and his introductions of 1839 leave no doubt about the market at which he was aiming. They were: ‘Queen Victoria’ (in the year of her coronation), ‘Lady Fordwich’ (wife of the British Ambassador) and ‘Duchess of Sutherland’, the leader of early Victorian society — “an exquisite creature with a fine sense of fashion” according to Elizabeth Longford. In the Rose Annual for 1916, there is a black and white photograph of a standard head of ‘Duchess of Sutherland’, stated then to have been 42 years old by its proud owner, Edward Mawley VMH (1842-1916), the societies effective Hon. Secretary for 37 years and subsequently president; he died in office. Mawley felt it still to be worth growing. It produced its profusion of bland pink, sweetly scented full blooms in two bursts in early summer and again in September. “Its only defect”, wrote Mawley, “in the eyes of today’s rosarians would be that its petals are rather shorter than most of our modern varieties”. Despite this seeming handicap, it was still being grown in the district of Brie for the Paris cut rose trade as late as 1928. By 1936, the 30-year-old plants had been grubbed out and replaced by modern cultivars. The world was not alas then conservation conscious; and with them, probably the last plants extant disappeared.
Fortunately, the same fate did not overtake two important seedlings, also in shades of pink, first introduced in 1842 and which firmly established the Hybrid Perpetuals as a new class. ‘Baronne Prévost’ raised by an amateur, Romain Desprez, reproduced the old flat floral style quite early in the season with a reliable second flowering. To William Paul, who used his superlatives sparingly, it was “a most superb kind”, a judgement shared by the French National Society of Horticulture’s Rose Section 65 years later when a symposium placed it among the 200 most beautiful roses, of the 2,000 or so available.
But it is the second of these seedlings which was to have the greatest impact on rose development, one sent out by Laffay, ‘Rose de la Reine’. Paul has reflected how his first glimpse of it in the raiser’s nursery almost caused a catastrophe when he nearly trampled on another precious seedling in his eagerness to get a closer look. It was the largest of its kind, a mass of 76 cupped petals in lilac pink with a hint of crimson occasionally on the reverse. Usually bearing one bloom per stem , needing protection from rain, it was tailor-made for exhibitors, who were then a rapidly increasing group in this country and in France. Of more permanent value, however, was its supreme importance as a parental sort. Ten years ago, it was shown that the ancestry of the great majority of to-day’s pink roses is traceable to this rose.
Widely distributed and intensively propagated, ‘La Reine’ as it came to be known, obligingly produced during its long years in commerce a number of mutations. A tertiary sport, or a secondary sport of a ‘La Reine’ seedling, records as to which are conflicting, was sent out in 1882 as ‘Merveille de Lyon’; it remained the best white exhibition rose until superseded by one of its own seedlings, the world beater ‘Frau Karl Druschki’ of 1901. Unfortunately rich Damask fragrance disappeared along with this particular line of descent. It became s dominant factor inherited by ‘Frau Karl Druschki’ and was transmitted to many of its seedlings.
The interest in this group doubtless stimulated by the publicity given to it in the recently founded Gardener’s Chronical, of which the rose correspondent was none other than the 21 year old William Paul, led to official recognition of the Hybrid Perpetuals in 1843. A. Paul & Son listed them separately for the first time in their catalogue of that year; 54 cultivars were offered, including many that were formally listed as Damask Perpetuals (=Portlands). Analysis shows that exactly half had been raised by Laffay. Indeed, Paul was to remark later that “the creation of the hybrid perpetuals owed more to Laffay than the rest of the French cultivators together’.
From about 1853, Laffay went into semi-retirement. Writing to William Paul, he said “I am persuaded that in the future, we shall see more beautiful roses which will totally efface these we now admire.” His prediction proved only too true, and it is one of the ironies that despite all his prodigious efforts, only ‘La Reine’ among his Hybrid Perpetuals is remembered today.
The arrival of new seedlings on the market gathered momentum so that the number of HPs on offer by A. Paul & Son in 1843, had about trebled ten years later and the doubled again the next decade to just over 300. By contrast, of the other classes of “autumnal roses”, the Tea-scented totalled only 80 and the Bourbons just over 60, together with a handful of Noisettes and Chinas. The Portlands suffered a virtual eclipse; certainly by 1858 Benjamin Cant no longer offered any of this group. He was, however, “surprised at the almost innumerable and very splendid variety contained in the Hybrid Perpetual class in a comparatively short time since it appeared”; when he wrote, it was a matter of 20 years.
As Ben Cant has said, the HPs had come a long way in a short time. This was particularly true This was particularly true of the immediate past decade, 1850-59. Jules Margottin, a rose grower of Bourg-la-Reine, near Paris, raised a seedling of which he thought sufficiently well to indulge in a piece of self-esteem by naming it after himself. Sent out in 1853, it became another extremely influential cultivar. Victor Paquet, a contemporary horticultural journalist, felt it was similar in shape, form and colour, a deep cerise clouded with mauve tints, to ‘Bennus’ one of Laffay’s once flowering Hybrid Chinas of 1830. Seeing the two cultivars together, this seems a more acceptable guess at its parentage than the more frequently quoted ‘La Reine’, to which ‘Jules Margottin’ bears scarcely any resemblance. As a fashion note, the Parisiennes of the late 1870s eventually appreciated its symmetrical cupped form and colour, as Journal des Roses for December 1880 reported that “thousands of blooms were sold for the adornment of bonnets”, a fact which could hardly have pleased the milliners, as Paris happened to be the centre of artificial flower making.
Margottin’s success continued. With other nurserymen, he was invited to supply plant material for the grounds of the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855, the French reply to our Great Exhibition of 1851, by providing two borders along the main thoroughfare with bushes of an unnamed seedling. It attracted so much admiration from the visitors that the Organizing Committee decided to award it a special prize. Margottin named it appropriately , ‘Triomphe de l’Exposition’ and this must surely be the only instance of a rose gaining an award for which it had not been entered. It is a deep cherry cerise with hints of crimson, and vigorous, long, thorny wood, not unlike that of ‘Jules Margottin’.
In 1858, two seedlings in pink bought further improvements to this colour range, ‘Anna de Diesbach’ in rich rose pink gained a prize from the influential Horticultural Society of Lyon for a new seedling of any genus. The raiser reported it as being raised from ‘La Reine’ x an unnamed seedling. By this, he probably meant that the seed parent, ‘La Reine’ had been open pollinated, although the inheritance from ‘La Reine’ is not very apparent. The second, a seedling from ‘Jules Margottin’, was named for one of the ladies of the Court of Emperor Napoleon III; it bought a lovely new silvery pink colour to HPs. John Cranston found it “exquisite; a most superb rose”; another nurseryman Thomas Rivers, wrote: “Of all the roses in this group (rose coloured and pink), the ‘Comtesse de Charbrillant’ is the most perfect in shape and delicacy of colour; it is quite impossible to imagine a rose more beautiful.” The American nurseryman H. B. Ellwanger also found its form “perfect; a quite lovely rose”. With all these accolades heaped upon it, it seems unbelievable that it should have disappeared without trace until its rediscovery in the late 1960s.
Writing in May 1848, William Paul explained the difficulties of obtaining a really brilliant crimson Hybrid Perpetual of good floral shape and constitution; he had had no success himself, but the recently introduced ‘Géant des Batailles’ (1846) “was a step in the right direction”. It makes a low, compact bush with plentiful dark green foliage; the rather small cupped blooms open flat are crammed with small bright crimson petals, rapidly turning to purple. It is so highly susceptible to mildew and has transmitted this weakness to its many descendants.
The raiser of ‘Géant des Batailles’ was an amateur rosarian and the next step, a big one, is also credited to an amateur. It was sent out in 1852 rather confusingly under the name ‘Général Jacqueminot’ since Laffay had previously introduced in 1846 a purple coloured, once flowering Hybrid China of the same name. In fact, both roses were staged by Ben Cantin his prize-winning box of 72 distinct varieties at the first National Rose Show in 1858. Any confusion, however, would not last long because the new-comer filled the gap of a really satisfactory crimson rose on all counts. The new rose had twenty five large petals forming a globular bloom with a tight conical centre when at its best, an entirely new formation in the HPs. The artist, Geoffrey S. Fletcher, once described the bright crimson and scarlet of the young blooms as “almost pre-Raphaelite in intensity, changing with age to Tyrian purple”, by no means an objectionable discolouration. Its rich scent, sometimes called “typical Jack fragrance”, is so distinctive that a few years ago Messrs Coty gave its name to one of their perfumes. It flowers profusely early in the season on thin but firm stems from a big plant not greatly troubled by disease. With a second good crop in late July or August, it possessed all the qualities demanded of a commercial forcing rose in the then rapidly developing cut flower trade position in the florists’ industry for over 50 years, when it was replaced by its HT descendant ‘Richmond’. Lest any confusion would arise, that was named for the town in Indiana, USA, where it was raised.
These qualities would have been sufficient in themselves to make a useful rose, but ‘Général Jacqueminot’ transmitted both as a seed bearer and pollinator all its good points. In 1941, the American botanists, Clark Paris and Professor Tom Maney, traced over 500 seedlings and 60 sports attributable to this one rose. It is, as far as I am aware, the only rose varietal name to enter the English Dictionary.
Its final accolade, however, came in its country of origin when in 1912 a Commission of Roses of the French National Society of Horticulture declared it “the most important hybrid development of all time”. By one of those bitter ironies of fate, its raiser, who had previously produced nothing worth-while, died before it had been introduced.
In 1928, Dr Jean H. Nicolas, one of the famous firm of Jackson & Perkins, traced in the South of France an old man whose uncle M. Auguste Roussel, had been that fortunate and unfortunate raiser. He was happy to report that the nephew still had plants which had been propagated from the original magnificent everblooming ‘Général Jacqueminot’, and was thus able to rejuvenate stock which had become suspect of vegetative degeneration, a physiological condition, the causes of which are not fully understood. Speculation as to what constituted the parents of this outstandingly important rose has exercised rosarians ever since its appearance. The general consensus is that ‘Gloire des Rosomanes’ was probably one. It has been of great interest to see that I share with Jack Harkness the guess, for that is all it can be, that the other parent was ‘Géant des Batailles’.
The final rose in that auspicious decade again received plaudits from all observers. Paul put it among his select few as “one of the best” and to Rivers, rather more fancifully it represented “la crème de la crème”. ‘Victor Verdier’ sent out in 1859 and named for one of the heads of the rose growing family, was unusual in many respects. The colour, bright rose with carmine at the centre, was described as “a very fresh shade”; and the globular, high centred blooms came freely throughout the season, although they lacked fragrance. One feature remarked upon by several observers was the smooth, almost thornless wood and its very desirable habit of blooming intermittently throughout the season instead of in two bursts separated by eight or so weeks as did other HPs. In the phraseology of the time, it was a “capital autumnal”, to such an extent that many rosarians suspected that a China or Tea-scented variety was in its parentage, although the raiser François Lacharme of Lyon, stated it was a seedling from ‘Jules Margottin’. By this it is presumed he meant that the seed had been saved from an open pollinated hip. At that time, it was widely believed that the pollinator, that is the male plant, transmitted no really significant characteristics; therefore systemic crossing was regarded largely as a waste of effort. Consequently, in few instances where controlled hybridization did take place, the pollinator was rarely recorded.
Since only those early HPs genetically related to the Teas with their R. gigantea ancestry were capable of producing climbers, the occurrence of a climbing sport of ‘Victor Verdier’ in 1871 should have clinched the matter. Some years later, in conversation with the horticultural journalist Camille Bernardin, Lacharme said that at the material time, the mid 1850s, there were few Tea roses on his nursery except for a field of ‘Safrano’ being grown on contract for cut blooms. He presumed this acted as the pollinator to the particular bloom of ‘Jules Margottin’. Later still, Lacharme was to write to the well known Americam rose breeder and grower, E Gurney Hill, who, incidentally, was the raiser of ‘Richmond’, that “‘Safrano’ had been responsible for the new type of Hybrid Perpetual of which ‘Victor Verdier’ was the prime example”.
It is one of the tragedies of rose development that this strong claimant susceptible to rust, which doubtless accounts for its disappearance, but quite a number to the first generation seedlings have survived in the great European collections. It is a curious feature that on one side, ‘Jules Margottin’ produces a line of carmine and pink descendants endowed with sweet fragrance but a weak repeat factor, while on the other side, through ‘Victor Verdier’, the good repeaters have inherited their parents absence of scent.

The Hybrid Perpetual Roses - A Survey by L. Arthur Wyatt. RNRS Rose Annual 1981

Part 3

These, then, were the progenitors of class. The Hybrid Perpetuals had indeed come a long way in a short time, but Paul warned his readers in 1863 not to expect the same spectacular advance. “Unless fresh ground was broken, [we] will have to rest satisfied with more gradual improvement”. As if to emphasize this goal, Paul reported that he had imported from France the previous year 62 new roses, mostly of the HP class, but found only 24 were of any real merit.
Paul’s remark highlighted a problem which had been in existence for many years and now was reaching very large scale proportions. From the United States in the west and to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the east, the middle class and the skilled artisans where rising rapidly in size, affluence and influence. They were will and eager to fill their with plants and especially roses, thanks to skilful propaganda. As Dean Hole had realised, a rose show was the very best form of publicity. In France, the comices, the long established equivalent to our County Shows, were serving much the same purpose. Foster-Melliar was in no doubt about the benefits that had accrued to professional nurserymen and amateurs alike: “Where ten roses were at one time produced and sold to amateurs, a thousand would now be a more likely figure”. To meet this insatiable demand for novelty, the French rose raisers literally swamped the market with new varieties. Shirley Hibberd calculated in 1874 that in the previous ten years, 565 new roses had been introduced, of which 462 (82%) were HPs. From the details provided, it would seem that almost every rose grower in France had climbed on to a very lucrative band-wagon.
But in popularizing the rose, the shows had had the effect of distorting its functions as a garden plant. The first National Rose Show of 1858 and for a long time thereafter it was the practice to exhibit the blooms only in boxes. William Paul put his finger on the matter in an article of July 1874: “The Rose shows as at present conducted encourage breeding for shape and size without any regard to the habit, health and constitution, hence many new Roses are woefully deficient in these fundamental qualities. Very many of the finest Roses which are so much admired in the stands at Rose Shows are worthless for effect in the garden”. Paul suggests that “999 of the thousand visitors who grow for garden decoration would be better to choose from plants growing in nurseries or gardens...But the general public to not yet understand this”. They did not understand it for several reasons. Although Paul’s own nurseries were just outside Waltham Cross railway station, many nurseries were less accessible in that “horse and buggy” age. Secondly they were influenced by contemporary literature. The show reports in the gardening press and in the local newspapers devoted columns to prize-winning varieties, and the most prolific writers of the time were leisured amateurs, including numerous clergymen, who were keen exhibitors; their enthusiasm not surprisingly coloured their views on rose growing.
William Paul, however, put his preaching into practice. He discontinued competitive exhibiting and laid out in July 1874 in Regent’s Park, London, a rose garden largely of “garden”, that is decorative varieties, displayed in jars, basket-work jardinières and of pot grown specimens, comprising altogether some 6,000 stems and trusses. His effort received the plaudits of the general as well as the horticultural press, attracted 10,000 visitors and resulted in full order books. Paul was sufficiently encouraged to repeat the venture the following year on an even grander scale, using over 8,000 roses. Unfortunately, the weather let him down. He was a century ahead of his time. There would be no departure from the boxed form of exhibiting for another twenty years, while the “natural” form of presentation had to wait until RNRS Summer show, Rose ’78.
Roy Shepherd (1954) considers that the HPs reached their peak of popularity around 1884-1885. certainly, when John Cranston, the Hereford rose nurseryman, published his Complete Catalogue of Roses in 1888, comprising some 2,300 varieties, the HPs were overwhelmingly preponderant; nearly 1,500 could be purchased compared with only 320 Teas and less than half the number of Bourbons. Faced with this bewildering array, Henry B Ellwanger, the American nurseryman, one of the main importers of European raisers roses, hit upon the idea of dividing them into “family groups” according to the main common characteristics. Of the twelve types, two were pink, one white and the remaining nine in red. These groupings indicate the relatively narrow range of colours, no greater than at the beginning of the century. A so-called yellow HP had been introduced in 1884, amid a blaze of publicity, but it turned out to be white with only a hint yellow in the centre, derived from a Tea rose, ‘Mme Falcot’. The Teas had a much wider spectrum, more delicacy of tints, but lost to the HPs on the score of hardiness. When the raisers finally concentrated on controlled hybridization in order to obtain a combination of the desirable qualities of the two older classes, the decline of both Hybrid Perpetuals and Teas was inevitable.

Decline
In the case of the HPs, their decline was as spectacular as had been their rise. For the period 1888-1898, William Paul noted 224 new roses, of which only 47 were HPs; they had been over taken by the HTs totalling 58. Two other newly emergent groups, rapidly catching the public imagination, were the polyantha pompons and their relatives the multiflora ramblers.
Following the institution of the Gold medal award in 1883, the run of seven HP winners was broken in 1892 by the HT ‘Mrs W. J. Grant’. It was no coincidence that the NRS officially recognised the existence of the class in the following year, and at the same time, introduced classes for decorative roses in the show schedules. The report of the council in 1894 remarked on “the improvement and increased interest brought about by the display of the lighter and more graceful members of the Rose family”. One can almost see William Paul’s face. In 1907, Edward Mawley, writing in the Journal of Horticulture said: “One cannot but notice from year to year the unchecked advance of Hybrid Teas and the parallel decline of the Hybrid Perpetuals. And yet at present we cannot dispense with HPs altogether”. Mawley was a keen exhibitor. Two years later, Arthur Paul, son of William who had died in 1905, could state that for the first time, sales by his firm of Hybrid Teas had exceed those of all other groups.
Hybrid Perpetuals continued to be introduced and win awards. ‘Hugh Dickson’ gained a Gold Medal for its raiser namesake in 1903, and ‘J. B. Clark’ did the same for Mr Dickson the following year. Both were seedlings of the same cross, which included a short pillar rose directly descended from ‘Gloire des Rosomanes’ (alias ‘Ragged Robin’), named ‘Gruss an Teplitz’. Finally in 1914 Dr J. Campall Hall’s ‘Annie Crawford’ was the last HP Gold Medal rose, described at the time as “an improved ‘Mrs John Laing’” — which evidently it was not. By curious coincidence ‘Muriel Wilson’, the last Gold Medal Tea of 1921 was also raised by Dr Cambell Hall. Then in 1924, as if to have one final fling, the fine crimson ‘Henry Nevard’ from Cants of Colchester won the Clay Cup for fragrance, it was the last recorded HP from a British raiser. The American amateur hybridist, Rev George M. Schoener, raised ‘Arrillaga’, another ‘Mrs John Laing’ seedling, in 1929 but it did not reach this country. The same applies to several HPs raised in Czechsolovakia in the early 1930s.
The disappearance of HPs from nurserymaen’s lists was never quiet as complete as that of the Teas. The famous trio, ‘Mrs John Laing’, ‘Frau Karl Druschki’ and ‘Hugh Dickson’ were still generally available through the late 1940s and early 50’s and were often included in the “bargain-mixed-dozen-our-selection” package, which was how I first made their acquaintance. Bt dint of searching it was possible to find, perhaps, another half dozen, such as the white exhibition Druschki seedlings, ‘Candeur Lyonaise’ (1914) and ‘Louise Cretté’ (1915). The huge ‘Paul Neyron’ (1869) and highly fragrant ‘Ulrich Brunner’ (1881), still used in France for distillation of attar, and both derived from ‘Anna de Diesbach’, were available for the sentimentalist in the odd corner of one or two catalogues, usually under the heading “miscellaneous Roses”.

Revival
During his now famous quest for he long lost old garden roses during and immediately following the Second World War, Graham Thomas came across a number of Hybrid Perpetuals which he also re-introduced commercially in the early 1950s. Two were single out for mention in his The Old Shrub Rose (1956) but the main bulk comprising some 30 varieties, including a number of rarities, were featured first in successive editions of his manual, Roses as Flowering Shrubs then more extensively in Shrub Roses of To-day (1962). By the latter date, many other specialist rose nurseries were offering quite a wide selection of HPs. Messrs R Harkness & Co of Hitchin collected the greatest number in their well-known list of 1,000 rose varieties of 1965. This, nevertheless still a number of gaps unfilled. An article in The Rose by Gordon Rowley (1965) indicating that ‘La Reine’ had been lost to cultivation bought a quick a widespread response from the international readership. Several contenders arrived but it was not until 1968 that the authentic variety was finally located among the great collection of Hybrid Perpetuals at the Sangerhausen Rosarium in East Germany. Before negotiations for a supply of budwood of this and other lost roses could be completed, the magazine had to cease publication. As its editor, I was approached to organize in a private capacity the propagation and distribution of the plants to the interested parties who had originated the requests as part of the magazine’s tracing service.
Inevitably, other requests soon followed. From several former readers of The Rose in this country came cultivars that Graham Thomas and Messrs Harkness had missed. They included the fine cerise ‘Dupuy Jarmain’ (1868) which astonishingly still finds no place in the RNRS collection of HPs at Bone Hill or in the National Trust’s garden of shrub roses at Mottisfont Abbey. The late Barroness Gisèle de la Roche drew attention to a number of little known roses of various classes in her collection of pre-1914 cultivars near Antwerp. They included ‘Souvenir de Jeanne Balandreau’ (1899), a deep vermilion sport from ‘Ulrich Brunner’. Those who now grow it consider the colour to be an improvement on its more famous parent. Herr Max Stutz in Switzerland acted as a useful and generous talent scout in his country, and there was great interest shown among American rosarians, particular Mr Howard Tenner who had an enviable, large and long established collection of HPs in Connecticut. Unfortunately, problems of transmission of plant material proved insuperable.
The authorities of the Sangerhausen Rosarium were the most generous providers of all. Through their good offices were obtained the missing members of the basic Hybrid Perpetual types suggested by Ellwanger, plus several of the earliest recipients of the RNRS Gold Medal, including the very first, Henry Bennett’s ‘Her Majesty’ of 1883, whose award was reportedly granted by acclamation. Its huge pink blooms were favourites among box class exhibitors for over 30 years, but one is forced to wonder just how many tons of flowers of sulphur were used during that time keeping mildew at bay. It is a pity that Bennett’s ‘Heinrich Schultheis’ had been sent out the year before the Gold Medal was instituted; it is a far better rose in all respects save size. Bennett has named it for the young member of the famous German rose firm who had come to learn the secrets of controlled hybridization pioneered by the remarkable middle-aged farmer turned professional rose breeder. Dr Derek Herincx subsequently brought back from Sangerhausen all the available surviving Bennett originations and others from which he was known to have made some of his crosses. Mr Herincx’s dedication piece of practical research work is deserving of wider appreciation. Mr Humphrey Brooke, another devotee of the HPs, also visited Sangerhausen and returned with 30 or so cultivars which had impressed him.
With only one or two exceptions, it can be said that after an absence of sixty years and more, all the really important Hybrid Perpetuals are back in this country. Unfortunately, ill health forced an end to my collecting and reintroduction activities in 1976, and the bulk of the collection had to be dispersed. Mr James Russell is now painstakingly re-assembling it at Castle Howard, York, and as already mentioned there are representative collections to be seen at Bone Hill and Mottisfont Abbey, near Romsey, Hampshire.

Assesment
In a symposium on the best twelve Hybrid Perpetuals and Bourbon Roses published in last year’s Rose Annual, it was somewhat chastening to see only four HPs selected by the panel. Of these four, two show affinities closer to the Bourbons and the third ‘Baron Girod de l’Ain’, was in its own time regarded as an oddity. Of the conventional, large flowering HPs, only ‘Mrs John Laing’ was honoured.
There was no place for ‘Frau Karl Druschki’, “a world beater”, stated Jäger, himself a German, “despite its name handicap”; while not one crimson for which the HPs were renowned could muster sufficient support. Surprisingly, no rose in symposium could be said to be of the “true poet’s hue”.
But no matter how present day rosarians may regard them, the Hybrid Perpetuals were, in their own context, the big success story of 19th century horticulture. It was, after all, the distinctive exhibition qualities of this group that largely gave the RNRS its raison d’être.
Big in bloom, and in general, plant size; rugged and tolerant of soil and climatic conditions, where the daintier and more strongly recurrent blooming Teas and China would miserably fail; small wonder that they retained the public’s favour for so long. It has been amply demonstrating how discerning rosarians were fully conscious of the defects in the habit, bloom period and limited range of colours then existing and it was the urge to improve this class that engaged the main attentions of the hybridists. The result of their efforts to accelerate the otherwise slow evolutionary process are apparent to all.

The Hybrid Perpetual Roses - A Survey by L. Arthur Wyatt. RNRS Annual 1981

Part 1

Origins
In the early 1830s, the French grower, Jules Laffay, introduced two seedling roses of his own raising, ‘Omar Pacha’ and ‘Françoise de Foix’. Neither was in any way outstanding and both soon disappeared. They were, however, the precursors of a new group of roses which would usher in an entirely new concept of rose culture and a revised scale of value of both plants and blooms, particularly the latter quality.
Laffay termed his seedlings “hybrids remontants”. This name had no botanical significance, and was coined as a way out of the confused situation which rose classification had then become. Indeed, so much earnest discussion as to the parentage of roses had taken place that Oscar Foulard, an amateur of Le Mans, sent out a seedling in 1832 which he named, with tongue in cheek, ‘Désespoir des Amateurs’ (Despair of the Amateurs), which he described as “a characteristic mixture of Damask, Centifolia pomponia, China, Noisette, Bourbon, Tea and Centifolia; specifically to be known as Rosa perpetuosissima (i.e. the extra-perpetual flowering rose)”. Since all rose seedlings then and for many years to come were a result of open pollination. Foulard could not possibly have determined the parentage of his seedling. The serious minded young William Paul failed to see the leg-pull and dismissed it summarily with “Lilac rose; worthless”. Foulard had, nevertheless made a very valid point.
Until the late 18th century, the only roses know in Europe to have any pretension to repeat flowering were the ‘Autumn Damask’, which had arrived from the Middle East around 1640-50, and its lesser known white sport, which occurred at some later unrecorded date. Real improvements in extending blooming came about only after the arrival of a group of roses from Asia at the end of the 18th century. Since the dates of the first importations into Europe are still a matter of debate, it is significant to note here the dates of arrival in France, because the main developments occurred there, and Claude-Antoine Thory (1752-1827) the eminent botanist and collaborator of J-P. Redouté, was as reliable an observer as any of his contemporise.
The first, known today as ‘Old Blush’ reached Europe from England in 1798. Writing in 1816 his commentary for Redouté’s exquisite illustration. Thory stated: “It was for a time treated as a tender conservatory subject (= plante d’orangerie) but to-day it is grown in the open and has survived the severest winters so far encountered”.
The second, ‘Crimson China’, has proved more difficult to sustain in cultivation in cold climates, but it had already crossed with the hardy ‘Autumn Damask’ in Italy around 1795 0r 1796, and the resultant seedling reached France in 1803 as Rosa paestana, André Dupont, the garden superintendent at Empress Josephine’s château at Malmaison, re-named it ‘Rosier de Portland’ in honour of the Duchess of Portland, who was understood to have been instrumental in persuading the Board of Admiralty to grant passport to John Kennedy, nurseryman of Hammersmith, to carry this and other roses through the war-time blockade. The did so on a further occasion in 1811, when Kennedy carried not only ‘Crimson China’ but the equally influential ‘Hume’s Blush Tea-Scented China’; horticultural riches indeed! The Portland in the hands of French nurserymen became the progenitor of a large group of repeat flowering roses referred to in some Victorian publications as Damask Perpetuals, although most modern authorities prefer the term Portland. The plant at Bone Hill agrees in all respects with Redouté’s painting and Thory’s botanical description. Certainly the brightness of the crimson flushed scarlet with white patch at of the two rows of petals clearly give away the China parentage. From the ‘Autumn Damask’ came the short pedicel surmounting three or four closely set leaf-stalks, producing what Graham Thomas has descriptively termed “high-shoulders” effect, a dominant characteristic transmitted to the Portland’s immediate descendants and many beyond.
The next major advance was achieved through a seedling of unknown parentage, although both William Paul and Thomas Rivers agree that the Portland Rose was probably the seed parent. It was raised in the gardens of the Royal Place of St Cloud and named in 1812 as ‘Rose à quatre saisons Lelieur’. According to William Paul, “an official of the King’s household, captivated by its beauty, determined that it should bare the name of the king. A warm disputation arose. The Count maintained that as the rose was his creation, he had the right of naming it. When the question was submitted to higher authority, his arguments were over-ruled and the Count, mortified tendered his resignation”. That story, with various embellishments, has been repeated by English-speaking writers down to the present day.
Unfortunately, the story has many discrepancies and conveniently ignores the facts of French political history. In the first place, Napoleon Bonaparte was Emperor at the time the seedling was raised, and as a Bonapartist, Lelieur resigned his appointment on the restoration of the Bourbon claimant, as Louis XVIII, in 1815. There is not much doubt that the official of the King’s household who was captivated by the rose was none other than the Comtesse du Cayla, the last in a long line of royal mistresses and a keen gardener, and that is was she who decided without the raiser’s consent that is should be re-named ‘Rose du Roi’. Charles Souchet, who had been head gardener under Lelieur and succeeded him as superintendent of Saint-Cloud, re-issued it under its new name in 1815 or 1816, records differ. When Thory wrote his commentary to accompany Redouté’s illustration, he made no secret of his views on the high-handed action. He and other horticulturalists, including Laffay, continued to use the original name. No such scruples worried James Lee, partner to the earlier mentioned John Kennedy. When he introduced it to the British market in 1819, he renamed it ‘Lee’s Crimson Perpetual’, which was descriptively accurate even if the implied credit of origin smacked of deception. As for the Comtesse du Cayla, exactly fifty years were to pass after her death before her name was honoured with a rose, a charming China from Pierre Guillot in 1902. However we must return to ‘Rose du Roi’.
Thory reported it had “the widest distribution of all roses”, so it is not surprising to find from such intensive propagation a number of mutations occurring. Shepherd (1954) quoted three but at least four more have recently been traced. The purplish tint always apparent in the 20 or so petals of ‘Rose du Roi’ became fixed as an overall cardinal purple in the first sport of 1819. Sent out as ‘Rose du Roi à fleurs pourpres’ it has generally proved to be more popular than the parent, or at least it has been more readily available. The last recorded sport, a striped variety with a tendency to revert named ‘Panachée de Lyon’, occurred as late as 1895. These, together with a light pink, dwarf growing variant named ‘Bernard’, much admired by several Victorian writers, are still in cultivation. That they have survived is not so much a reflection of strong constitutions for, as Peter Beales has pointed out (1977), these Portland roses are temperamental and intolerant of poor soil and exposed sites. Rather it is a tribute to the few gardeners in successive generations who have been prepared to lavish on them the extra careful cultivation that they demand.
While Portlands were providing the main
Line of development of repeat flowering roses, other important contributors were also appearing in Europe from widely separate sources.
The Noisettes, to which Foluard had alluded in the “parentage” of his ‘Despair of the Amateurs’ was a cross between the ‘Common China’ (‘Old Blush’) and the Musk Rose which had occurred as a chance hybrid in Charleston, South Carolina around 1802. It reached France in 1815 and was put into commerce in 1819.
That same year Emile Bréon, a French botanist working on the Île de Bourbon (subsequently renamed Réunion) in the Indian Ocean, sent home a chance hybrid which had been brought to his attention by the original finder, a Monsieur Perichon. Bréon asserted that the roses were not indigenous to the island, and only ‘Common China’ and the ‘Autumn Damask’ were grown as hedging plants, statements which should have quelled the doubts as to its parentage and provenance, for Mauritius had also made a claim. Redouté painted it in the summer of 1822 at Château de Neuilly where one of the original plants had been received, while Thory in the accompanying text gave it the somewhat surprising name R. canina burboniana. These, then, were the main contributors to the mixture so playfully referred to by Oscar Foulard.
In the following summer of 1823, Thory went to see a new seedling in the nursery of J-P. Vibert at Chennevieres-sur-Marne. He was so impressed with what he saw that he used the occasion to exhort more growers to try their hand at raising new seedlings. “After seeing the beauty and prodigality of bloom on this tree-like shrub”, he wrote, “one can see the advantages of augmenting the number of beautiful varieties from seed. It is to be regretted that this method is not so widespread as it should be in France, where we generally content ourselves by slavishly propagating the same established sorts”. Considering France was already the power house for raising new roses, and would retain its pre-eminence for another ninety years, Thory’s strictures seem somewhat out of place.
William Paul confirmed that when introduced two years later as ‘Gloire des Rosomanes’, “the brilliancy and profusion of the flowers caused some stir”. It actually reached England in 1827, when Messrs Loddiges listed it as ‘Ragged Robin’, and under this more homely name it reached the United States two years later. Some modern authorities tend to dismiss it as being “no longer of garden value” but others who have grown it have a sneaking affection for its velvety crimson, highly fragrant semi-double blooms which come in one big burst early in the season and intermittently thereafter on extra vigorous growth. The latter quality plus ease of propagation has been turned to good account in the United States, where it has been employed as an understock, while even more recently in Britain it has been offered in bulk as a hedging rose. It has already been noted that rose seedlings were obtained by open pollination, so that Vibert was unable to state its parentage. This fact, plus its semi-climbing habit, posed problems of classification since it fitted into none of the classes then existing. When other seedlings arrived with ‘Gloire des Rosomanes’ occasionally known to be the seed parent, the rose world took the most convenient way out by creating a new ‘Rose de Rosomane’ group.
The arrival of offspring from the Chinas had already presented problems for the French rosarians. Thory had observed as early as 1819 when writing of the Chinas “although these are the most frequently and constantly in flower, we have noticed that hybrids derived from the bloom only once during the year”. What Thory and everyone else neither knew nor suspected was that the now familiar Mendelian Laws of Inheritance were operating. In roses the repeat character of roses is recessive, so that when a repeat flowering China fertilized with a once flowering sort, such as one of the “old fashioned” roses, all the resulting seedlings would be once flowering. The completely submerged gene for repeat flowering would reappear only in a small proportion, about one in four, of the second generation. This might not have presented too much difficulty had second generation seedlings been readily produced, but chromosomatic differences between the Asiatic and European roses created a sterility barrier. When Thomas Rivers described these roses of mixed Asiatic and European parentage as “mules” his analogy with the animal kingdom was closer than he probably realised. Faced with a seedling which had discernable characteristics of the China or Bourbon, but failing in the essential repeat flowering quality, it was classed as a Hybrid China or Hybrid Bourbon. As for the Portlands, once flowering hybrids were simply placed with the Damasks and eventually, to make a complete distinction, the repeaters were named Damask Perpetuals. The term “hybrid” therefore became synonymous with once flowering and sterility.
In the case of Laffay’s two seedlings, they were clearly hybrids, just as was Foulard’s of the same time. However, they differed significantly from the previous hybrids by flowering again in the same season. Thus, to their French originators they were remontant and Gallic logic decreed the name of this new group to be “hybride remontant”. In this connection, it is worth noting that while the Americans and Germans adopted the French term per se, on this side of the Channel the name became “Hybrid Perpetual”. It has not been possible to discover who was responsible for this piece of mistranslation, since the French for perpetual is “perpetuel”, and it led to many difficulties and dissapointments. The Americans subsequently adopted the British term early this century.