CHAPTER XVI

OUR GRANDMOTHERS ROSES " To be chronicled, and chronicled, and cut and chronicled, and
all-tO-be-praised." - Worthies of England. THOMAS FULLER.
WO Rose-books are to me absolute authority for Rose-
j
knowledge of one hundred years ago, ere the Rose-treas- ures of China were lavished on our gardens. One is Mil- ler's Gardener s and Botanist's Dictionary, London, 1807. My four volumes are of great weight, literally, being nearly nineteen inches in height. I think this vast size and weight has kept them from frequent consultation, hence the perfect condition of the lovely binding. It is a splendid work, so temperate and lucid in descrip- tion ; in it forty species of Roses are given with the different varieties of each - - about two hundred in all. The second book is beloved of all Rose-lovers, Les Roses par P. J. Redoute. Two of the illustrations are reproduced, but colorless, on pages 353 and 354. At first sight of the exquisite Roses which bloom on these pages they seem to be hand colored by some
333
334 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
most skilful, sympathetic, albeit old-fashioned water- colorist. But they are not tinted by hand ; they are wonderful examples of what was then a newly dis- covered process of color-printing. The book was issued in 1824, fast approaching a century ago, and is unexcelled by any Rose-book to-day.
The Empress Josephine had a charming Rose garden at Malmaison; and when the Allies entered Paris in 1815, vigorous orders were given to protect always her garden. I am told there still exists in the English navy a standing order since the time of England's war with France, that all seeds and plants and shrubs bearing her address, when seized on French vessels by the English, should be at once forwarded to her, a true courtesy of war.
Though the Rose is the emblem of England, many of our best Roses bear French names ; for no marked progress in Rose cultivation in any country took place till 1815, when Vibert, the first of the great French Rose growers, founded his nursery. It was owing to the patronage of the Empress Jo- sephine that he could accomplish his great results. It is only forty years since English Rose growers raised any important Roses. In imitation of Jac- quin, Redoute brought out in 1803 a sumptuous book on this garden at Malmaison, dedicated, of course, to the empress. He also illustrated Rous- seau's Botany with sixty-five beautiful flower-pic- tures. They had charming Roses in 1824 — Roses which would not all take prizes at Rose shows to-day, but very cheerful flowers, wholesome, hardy flowers, and some of them very delicate and exquisite flowers.
Our Grandmothers' Roses
335
I have had a great deal of happiness this week in going through the pages of Redoute in company with Miss Jekyll's and Mr. Mawley's Roses for Eng- lish Gardens^ which has just come to me. A photo- graph does not convey a good idea of the personality of a Rose ; with the distinguishing color gone, a curious sameness appears. I have seen an experi- enced Rosarian sit puzzling over a photograph of a Rose-bush, where the leaves and stems were not very plainly shown, and the pictured flowers were small, hesitating over the correct naming of the photographed Rose. And worse still, but amusing, a lover of Roses had last sum- mer about forty-five pho- tographs taken
of Roses intending them for lantern-slides to use to illustrate a carefully studied lecture on Garden Roses which he was to deliver before a very intel- lectual audience. Three or four weeks elapsed ere the pictures came to him ; and then, to his chagrin,
336 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
he found he could not use half of them ; for when there was no tell-tale attribute, such as a neighbor- ing stick, a known grouping, or some unusual dis- tinction of stem or foliage, as has the Burnet-leaved Rose, he could not positively name his Roses.
I wonder if this simple picture of a Rose in bloom (page 335) will convey to any gentle reader who glances at it in the winter months when this book will be seen by that reader's eyes, any of the pleasure of reminiscence of the old-time garden which the photo- graph brought to me when I first saw it on a bitter day in March. I had not in it the carmine color, but I had the precise shape of a Rose I loved, the first Rose of summer, the June Rose, which might almost be the May Rose, since it has laughed outright with its cheerful glowing blossoms, and become silent and grown all green again before any other June Rose has opened a bud. It blossomed in an interval of time- - a week only — when noth- ing else bloomed, save possibly Money in both Pockets. Thus it had a double welcome, --it was for a time the only Rose, and it was the only flower. This picture does not, perhaps, give to one who had never seen this Rose a notion of the saucer-like expanse of the full-blown petals when in the hot sunshine. Its pure crimson disc is a bit like the Rosa ntgosa, but a more perfect circle and an infi- nitely better color. This old favorite still is seen in many front yards in New Hampshire; at one farm- house it has filled the entire yard. It is called there the Hedgehog Rose, from its sharp thorns. Its fra- grance is precisely that of an American Beauty Rose ;
Our Grandmothers' Roses
337
and it is a close-grained, compact fragrance, — a fragrance of weight. You can almost imagine a little globule of solid perfume standing on each crimson
Scotch Roses.
saucer ready for you to gather up as you pass, and keep forever as a memorial of spring and sunshine. There is a May Rose of the botanies, Rosa maja/is, a native of Sweden and Lapland, and of Yorkshire, said to have "pale red' flowers. It is supposed to be the single state of the Rosa Cinnamonea, and from other details of the description might be my
33 8 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
June Rose, if you could possibly conceive any one calling the color a pale red. But there were strange vagaries of color-naming and seeing in the old botanists.
The next Roses in bloom were the Scotch Roses, yellow and white ; these seem little cared for to-day. They do not, of course, satisfy any ambitious Ro- sarian. Their peculiarities of growth are well shown on page 337. Yellow Roses were so few that the yellow Scotch Rose held in favor longer than the white variety. The Austrian Yellow Rose, cen- turies old, and the Persian Yellow are little seen ; the latter is such a vile renegade as to its scent that it should not be called a Rose. It is an unutterable Joan Silverpin, "faire without, foule within," and owes its uprootal from many a garden because it "smells to heaven." The Harrison Rose is by tra- dition named to commemorate a political event, the election of the first President Harrison.
We never gathered the yellow Roses, for two rea- son : their frail petals dropped so quickly that they were valueless, and their spiny armament was too defensive for ordinary attack. It seemed to show that they were never intended to be picked. As for the Persian Yellow — there was a third reason already told. Long straggling branches, all closely armed, carried the yellow bloom of the Scotch Roses afar, and gave a rather shapeless appearance to the bush, one that would be abhorred by modern lovers of Rose- pillars and Rose-standards.
Stretching out thus in each branch, with its finely cut, close-set leafage, it certainly had the effect of a
Our Grandmothers' Roses
339
close-tied wreath, with yellow blossoms tied in, short- stemmed, to the very end of the drooping, swaying wreath. Country folk called it the Yellow Wreath
Harrison Yellow Rose.
Rose. Whatever the scent of the flower of the Harrison Rose, and all Rose friends differ, even to the extent of questioning whether it has any scent, the leaf certainly has the true sweet-brier fragrance.
34-O Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
Yellow Wreath Rose.
Only a whiff, however, which you cannot perceive at all when you try to; nor could any one else smell it if you told them of it.
Mrs. Martha McCulloch Williams calls the Bur- net-leaved Rose the Burr Rose, and its calyx is
* j
covered with close green prickles like a burr ; she compares it to a " flat dish of crinkly pink crepe," which is a fine description.
There was a nameless Rose of rampant and cheer- ful growth, a Rose which was everywhere. Its purply crimson deeply cupped blooms were fine in shape and color, not being magenta-tinted when in half-bloom ; but when fully expanded or when
Our Grandmothers' Roses 341
picked they turned a dulled tint, looked faded, muddy- colored, and showed white streaks at the base of the petals. You always found this Rose in the poorest homes, usually at the kitchen door, where it fairly kept down the weeds. We called it the Purple Rose; I think it must be the Purple Bouquet of Mrs. Williams, of which she says : -
" In all the Rose Kingdom there is no other burgess so cheery, so thrifty, withal so happy as the Purple Bouquet. It asks only leave to grow, never a chance ; will spread to a green mound or shrink to one starveling stalk, as fate may ordain. Great or small, it has always bloom and to spare for you."
This Purple Bouquet was one of the family Rosa gallica or Provins Rose, and I think the Gallica officinalis ; I hope I shall not seem " to say an un- disputed thing in such a solemn way if I remind my reader that Provins and Provence Rose are very different garden Roses ; the Provence is the Rosa centifolia, the French call it always Rose a cent-feuilles.
I know not the precise name of this Purple Bouquet, for nearly all of this family are purple- flushing. Redoute gives several which might be our Purple Bouquet, and the common Provins Rose, known as the Apothecaries' Rose, is in the illustra- tion precisely like our Rose. One, the type, the nearly single Rosa pumila or Austrian Rose, is the Rosier d 'amour of the French book, though that is not the Rose so known in England. Another was called by the Frenchman the " Cabbage Provins."
One called by Redoute the Purple Velvet Rose, I
Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
recognize as our Black Rose. This was so color- flushing that even the wood had purplish black streaks. This and several of the fine Roses of this family were grown for the garden of Josephine at Malmaison, and the finest propagated by themselves when the garden was comparatively neglected, after her death ; they were sturdy, independent things ; you couldn't kill them ; underground roots carried them far and wide. I have seen a backyard and vegetable garden, the kitchen yard of a deserted farm-house, over one acre in extent, covered with a mass of these Purple Bouquet Roses, which had triumphed over every other growing green thing. And I have seen a village sidewalk bordered for a quarter of a mile with a natural Rose hedge of this variety. I recall that one New England rosarian - 1 call her that though her whole garden wasn't more than a hundred feet square — always called the purple-pink Rose of her garden the Sultana Rose. This had but a double row of petals, and when grown in the genial sunshine, which seemed ever to shine on this garden of cheerfulness, these petals were of an infinitely rich color. I was delighted to find in Redoute Mrs. Pyncheon's Sultana Rose, under the name Belle Sultane.
Few of the other Provins Roses are grown in the gardens of great Rose growers, and these few are not our Purple and Black Roses. Curiously enough, the poorest to my mind of all, the Striped Provins, still are grown in England, among them Redoute's Gros Provins Panache es and Gallic a versico/or ; this is called by Redoute the Rosamond.
Our Grandmothers' Roses
343
The Rosa lucida is the Rose called in England by the pretty name Rose d'amour. This is a true American Rose, a native. I have seen it growing this sum- mer many times, and a very cheer- ful bush it is, with its shiny, glossy leaves turn- ing a gay light yellow, with some crimson red in autumn, and bear- ing many odd flat- tened hips. In gardens its flower is sometimes double and some- times single, with a few inner half- rays of petals within the perfect row. It is a very d i ff e r e n t pink from the Provence Rose or Cabbage Rose, — a redder pink, — and has not the beautiful fragrance ; in fact, it is one of the few Roses whose scent is distinctly distasteful.
The only truly American roses seen universally in our gardens are the beautiful climbing Prairie
Baltimore Belle.
344 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
Roses (Rosa rubifolia). These were originally a native of Michigan and other Western states; and the clear pink single variety, known as the Michigan Rose, still is grown, and an arch of it is a perfect thing. About 1836 the Feast brothers, florists in Baltimore, developed this Rose, and gave to us the beautiful Baltimore Belle, the Queen of the Prairie, Anna Maria, and Gem of the Prairies, which last is slightly scented sometimes, — not always, I find.
These all have large rough dark-green leaves of five to seven leaflets. They are the hardiest climbers known, and are far more rapid in growth than the Ayrshire Roses. And they come, too, when many other summer Roses are gone, when the Hundred- leaved Rose and the York and Lancaster are passing. They are not so delicate as the climbing Tea-Roses, but they are more generous ; one characteristic is their lavish fulness ; they seem fairly crowded with petals. And another is their wholesomeness ; they are fresh with the primeval breath of the Michigan forests and fields.
When they could have the Baltimore Belle, I cannot understand why any one planted the Bour- sault Roses, but they grew in every dooryard, always by the kitchen end of the farm-house. Forty years ago there was scarce a woodshed in New England but was garlanded with the crimson Boursault Rose. It was as widely planted in its day as the Crimson Rambler in our own. I care little for any of the Bour- saults, but the crimson variety was certainly cheerful. They were firm climbers and almost thornless. What wonderful things were the new stalks of the Boursault !
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345
Massive, straight, strong, they pushed like Zedekiah.
Tremendously big-looking they were in proportion
to the blossom,
dull of tint be-
dark purples and
young stalks
ous plumlike
which seemed side the rich reds of the with their curi- bloom.
Anne de Diesbach Rose.
346 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
At the base of page 345 is shown the lavish growth of the Anne de Diesbach Rose, one of the " middle- aged ' Roses which have been deservedly popular for a score or two of years. This bush is twenty years old, — the hardiest, sturdiest thing, bearing every trying extreme of New England winters, and every trying pest of New England summers, and sending out each year its many hard, round buds (the knops of Chaucer), which should be gathered when half open if you wish to secure within doors the rich, luscious pink of the outdoor bloom. An- other beautiful "middle-aged' Rose, the Lawson Rose, is wonderfully satisfying. One of the first of its plants was set in the Manning garden, in Salem, where all flowers prosper, and, above all, all Roses. Its pink is not like that of the Anne de Diesbach, but is equally beautiful.
There was a White Rose of the old garden which was to us nameless, a June Rose of fullest bloom, and greatly beloved. We called it simply " The White Rose," never confusing it with the Madame Plantier. It sent out very long, strong shoots, with strong, small thorns and rather bluish green leaves, which were easily ravaged by Rose enemies. There were two or three, or even five, Roses in a group together — not in a thick cluster, like the Seven Sisters — but always with one Rose a bit bigger and finer than others of the group. This flower was very rich and full, perfectly double ; the others might show a trace of gold in the heart. Every freshly opened Rose had a faint suggestion of pink ; but on the second day were absolutely purest whites
The White Rose.
Our Grandmothers' Roses 347
and when they dropped, almost blue-white. Occa- sionally a single lovely snow-white Rose would ap- pear in bloom on this bush in the autumn, and was a great prize, to be carefully gathered and set in the slender, wrought-silver vase. It used to be in all gardens, and was honored in all gardens; but I know but one garden in Worcester where there is a large and strong Rose-bush of "The White Rose." It is shown facing page 346. I know not of what Rose Cowper wrote, but his lines might well be written of The White Rose, as it stood against the " darkest gloom" of a tall cedar. He says : -
"The scentless and the scented Rose ; this red And of an humbler growth, the other tall And throwing up into the darkest gloom Of neighbouring cypress or more sable yew Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf That the wind severs from the broken wave."
The White Rose was, without doubt, the Rosa alba, for its leaves had the bluish tint of that race. It is of questioned standing in Rose lists, being, appar- ently, a cross between the Canina and Gallic a. It had a cousin, with the same glaucous leaves, which leaves had an almost artificial appearance. This cousin was the Blush Rose, or the Maiden's Blush, deemed by many old-time Rose lovers to possess the most deli- cate and exquisite tint of any Rose. This Rose was easily blighted as to its blossom and its growth, but was valued all the more because of its frailty. It was absent from our garden for years, but we have now a Blush Rose-bush, which we found in an old garden. The story of its finding has been told
348 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
so perfectly in verses by Edgar Fawcett that I will give them instead of my own prose : —
" I lean across the sagging gate ;
In rough neglect the garden lies, Disfeatured and disconsolate, Below these halcyon skies.
11 O'er pleasant ways once trimly kept
And blossoming fair at either verge, Weeds in rank opulence have swept Their green annulling surge.
" But over there, as though in soft
Memory of bloom that no more blows, A Rose-bush rears one bough aloft Starred with one stainless Rose.
" Above these weeds, whose ruffian power
So coarsely envtes what is fair, She bends her lightsome dainty flower With such patrician air
" That while I watch this chaste young Rose Some pale, scared queen she seems to be, Across whose palace courtyard flows The dark mob like a sea."
The Madame Plantier, " the other White Rose," as we called it, has never wavered in popularity nor waned in goodness since the first June when it opened its eyes on American soil. It was warmly welcomed, and has been ever, in turn, a devoted citizen. Other Roses often give to us on occa- sional years but a handsel of bloom ; but the Ma- dame Plantier ever lavishes upon us, whether in formal garden or cottage border, whether the season be cold and backward or dried up with sudden
Our Grandmothers' Roses
349
drought, a profusion of snowy blooms, as close- gathered as the stars in the Milky Way. The Damask Rose has ever been a favo- rite comparison to indicate the delicate com- plexion of a fair woman.
A pretty name may be given the lovely Damask Rose. An old Dutch carol runs thus: —
My master hath a Garden, Which flowers fair adorn,
And lovely Da'mask Roses Are there called Patience."
Patience.
350 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
Old Aubrey wrote nearly three centuries ago of that fair creature, Venetia Stanley, wife of Sir Kenelm Digby : —
" She had a most lovely sweet-turn'd face, delicate darke brown haire. She had a perfectly healthy constitution ; strong, good skin ; well proportioned ; enclining to a Bona Roba. Her face, a short oval ; darke-browne eie-browe about wch much sweetness, as alsoe in the openinge of her eie-lidds. The colour of her cheekes was just that of the Damaske Rose, which is neether too hot nor too pale."
This certainly is a beautiful drawing of the wife who died suddenly and was reputed to be poisoned : " wch her husband imputed to her drinking of viper- wine ; but spiteful women would say 'twas a viper-husband." And I always recall this term viper-husband when I read Digby's pious passages. A handsome portrait of her still shows her damask cheek. A beautiful old Damask Rose-bush over one hundred years old is pictured at the base of page 349.
The darker shade of the Damask Rose was called the Velvet Rose ; it is now seldom seen save in oldest gardens, but I shall ever love it for its richness of color of leaf and flower, so rich that color seems fairly to ooze from the entire plant. A single Velvet Rose in a vase within doors is such a point of color that it dims all else in the room. It is the finest red-pink in the whole Rose world, — nay, more, in the whole flower world.
The Velvet Rose is not graceful in bud, — it has then a blunted look ; nor is the shape when fully opened the most elegant of Rose forms ; but the
Our Grandmothers' Roses 351
texture ! the color ! the scent ! to tell which of the three is the finest attribute puzzles the Rose lover, when all are perfect. I have a splendid Velvet Rose given to me by a rare old lady of Maine who calls it the French Rose. Well is it named, since it is the " living emblem and the sign " of a wonder- ful romance of French history. This Rose tells the story of the "Affair of the Pinks," -a romance which is crying out to be told in an historical novel by some gifted hand. There was but one perfect bloom this year on the old Rose-bush which was transplanted from the garden of Fountain la Val. Such a tiny, aged, broken thing, its leaves are fairly gray with years and the stem is lumped and seamed and wenned, yet here is' this sightly, this luscious bloom. Its first American home was at the La Val garden at Lamoine on the Maine coast, northeast of Mount Desert. Ancient fruit trees and Lom- bardy poplars mark the site of the French mansion which was the home of Madame la Val, a French aristocrat, a widow of the Revolution, who came with her daughter and thirty citizens to found a refuge for her distressed fellow-countrymen.
The story of this house and the proposed refuge there of Marie Antoinette is part of the " Affair of the Pinks." The picture of the beautiful French queen on the brig Sally of Wiscasset, Captain Clough, is to me a curious one. The story has the attendant figures of Mirabeau, Count de Fersen, Talleyrand, Lafayette, in sharp contrast with the Yankee skipper and stately Madame Swan of Dor- chester, and fat General Knox. The cargo of rich
352 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
goods came without the royal owner to Squam Point. I have seen fans, china, silver, which were part of that cargo. In my sister's book, Furniture of the Olden Time, is shown a splendid semicircular sideboard, with knife-box, great silver salver, and urn, now owned by Hon. John P. Baxter of Port- land, Maine, and known as the " Marie Antoinette Side board." The furniture in that ship's cargo went largely, I believe, to the Swan mansion in Dorchester. The son of General Swan married the daughter of General Knox, and the sideboard was part of her wedding furnishings. From the Knox mansion it came to Mr. Baxter. Truly this French Rose blooms full of wondrous interest. In the writings of Carlyle, of Sewall, of Gouverneur Morris, of Lafayette, of Madame de Stae'l, of Talleyrand, do we learn of the " Affair of the Pinks." But we would wish that Morris had not been so guarded in his diary notes, nor Lafayette so silent when he visited Madame Swan in 1824.
We had in our garden Bourbon Roses, Bor- deaux Roses, Burgundy Roses, and Boursault Roses, — names easily confused in village communities. I found in one town the Boursault Rose called by every one the Bourbon.
The Bourbon Rose was much esteemed, and its beautiful late blooms in the autumn were all the greater delight because these blooms were so few. This was discovered originally on the Isle of Bour- bon growing in a hedge of Bengal and Damask Perpetual Roses, and it has characteristics of both, yet is absolutely a distinct variety ; some folk called
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353
our beautiful great pink Bourbon Rose what I fan- cied in childhood was spelled Apple-een. I now know it was Appoline, a Rose introduced here in 1848. Our Bordeaux Rose was much like the Burgundy, save that the latter was smaller and dark red, while the Bordeaux was pink. I have found in Redoute a perfect representation of this Bordeaux Rose. Re- doute says it differs little in general shape from, and often in rich earth will grow as large as, the Hundred-leaved Rose.
I have given on page 354 a reproduction of Redoute's drawing of the Burgundy Rose. I cannot give his beau- tiful coloring, alas! which is peculiarly happy in this case, giv- ing the exact tint of clear redness. We called it the Little Burgundy, and the name always seemed to me so appropriate for a Rose of that color; while another Burgundy of our garden — white with a beautiful pink centre — should have had another name. It did have, in fact; it was the Pomponia Tudor, while our Little Burgundy was the Pomponia Eurgundiaca. The white Bur-
2 A
Bourbon Rose from Redoute.
354 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
gundy changed color very decidedly in the course of its bloom. All the petals were pink and the edges and outside petals turned white as they
opened. Redoute gives the color of the Little Burgundy as a " rouge pourpre fonce" which is a very good descrip- tion. He says it should be cut immediately after flowering; and I recall distinctly that we always cut the withered blooms. The beautiful Bengal or China Roses I never knew in our garden save in one form, the tiny Fairy or Pony Rose. This has ever been to me one of the fully sat- isfying and more than satisfying things of the old-time garden. Some
Little Burgundy Rose. Redoute.
ever find beauty in vastness; they prefer ample extent and forms in all things ; they love large, full Roses. I have ever inclined to love beauty in miniature, finest lace and drawings, bits of carving in coral and ivory, clusters of perfect tiny gems rather than a single large one ; so I love small roses. I should love a minia- ture Rose garden set with Pompon Roses. Even as a child I loved especially this Pompon form, — a Double Buttercup, a Flowering Almond or Double
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355
Cherry, an English Daisy ; and in Roses this Fairy Rose, and the Dwarf Burgundy Rose, the White Pet, and the Banksias. I am sensible of some attraction, some drawing, toward these Fairy Roses which I can scarcely explain. They are not appeal- ing through their tiny size nor have they any cling- ing frailty ; they are compact, vig- orous, whole- some ; they have such a confident and cheerful ex- pression; they thereby assume an independence and dignity which conies to any cre- ated thing of any size which plays its small part in life to perfection. I note with some distress that my favorite writer on the Rose dis- misses the Fairy Rose with these curt words, " We do not deem them of value, the Bengals are small enough ; " nor does he place the Pompon Roses on his lists. This is not, of course, through a dislike for the double form of flowers, which
Fairy Rose.
356 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
many feel for certain species. I never like to see a flower of irregular or complex outline doubled : a Pea, a Columbine. But Roses, Pinks, and Peonies have, by doubling soft petal on soft petal, secured clustered beauty instead of outlined beauty ; as have all our fruit trees, the Peach, Almond, Cherry, Plum, Crab-apple, whose exquisite doubled flower forms have all the charm of the double Rose. One thing can be said in favor of doubled flowers in general, — namely, their scent is doubled with their petals.
There is one Rose of our grandmother's garden to which is constantly imputed a false old age. Especially in the South, where it grows freely, will great age be assigned to the Seven Sisters Rose. I have often been told that a certain Rose of this variety was planted long before the Revolutionary War ; or that it is one hundred and fifty years or even two centuries old. You must never question such statements ; it is cruel to the Rose owner, and besides you get yourself disliked — and for an un- important thing. The Seven Sisters Rose was, in reality, brought to us from China in 1821 — and that is old enough for anything or anybody.
The Seven Sisters Rose is given many names. It is really one of the forms of the Japanese Rosa multiflora,) and was known as the Rosa Roxburgheii and finally as the Rosa Grevillei. A good descrip- tion of it is found in Loudon's Arb. et Fruct. Brif., where it is called " Rosa multiflore Grevillte or Seven Sisters Rose." As the Grevillei it is offered in our America catalogues, though the Rose pedlers, who
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357
have sold it in such numbers, always call it the Seven Sisters.
I find that the Seven Sisters was wonderfully praised when new to English and American folk.
Seven Sisters Rose.
It had a popularity like the Crimson Rambler. There were pink and white and purple-pink varie- ties ; and a story is told of a plant at the Holdsworth Nursery which in 1826 covered one hundred square
358 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
feet, had over one hundred corymbs of blossoms, and some of the corymbs held fifty buds. Some thought that the variety of colors in the buds — seven in all — gave it its name. In 1830 Lindley wrote of it: —
" The Chinese call it the Seven Sisters Rose because about seven flowers open at the same time, each varying from the other in tint."
One good quality of this Rose is that the blooms are exceptionally long-lasting, and they are a neatly shaped Rose; white, at first opening, but tingeing with pink after a few days ; and they have a delicious fra- grance,— all these traits make them charming Roses for vases. It is never recommended by Rosarians, for it is held to be so free a grower and flowerer that it exhausts itself, seldom living but a few years.
A gazel or ghazal is a form of Persian love verse. Each couplet is, in a sense, a perfect poem or thought, but there should be thirteen stanzas in all, and the first and second lines rhyme with the fourth, sixth, eighth, and so on to the end. The ghazal is in senti- ment something like the Chinese " stop-short " ; the thought of the couplet should be carried on beyond the expressed words. Hafiz, the Persian poet of the fourteenth century, wrote this ghazal upon the Hun- dred-leaved Rose : —
' ' Thou fairest Rose of all, ah, say
For whom dost thou thy hundred leaves display ? To what blest mortal wilt thou own Such charms have sprung for him alone ? '
Our Grandmothers' Roses 359
The poems of Hafiz might well be entitled Hun- dred-leaved Roses, for his pages are filled with crowding Rose-leaves of verse.
The Rose of a Hundred Leaves is thus sung by Moore in Lalla Kookh : —
" The joyous time — when pleasures pour Profusely round, and in their shower Hearts open like the season's Rose — The Floweret of a Hundred Leaves, Expanding while the dew-fall flows, And every leaf its balm receives."
Although the Hundred-leaved Rose is a flower of aristocratic lineage, it is most countrified in bearing. It has a simple countenance, almost a childish look, and its pink and white is like a country child in good health ; I always think of Shakespeare's phrase, " a shining morning face," when I look at it. There is in this Rose much of " the freshness of the early world " ; it speaks of the childhood of humanity.
The York and Lancaster Rose bourgeoned in every garden of any grandmother of English lin- eage. I have told its story at some length in my chapter upon the Rose in English History, and so will only name it here to assure it of its ever wel- come presence in the old-fashioned garden.
Moss Roses were known to Gerarde and Parkin- son. Ever subject to that most trying of Rose scourges, mildew, they would have been crowded long ago from our gardens had it not been for a certain tender sentiment they awaken in every one. Many fanciful verses have been written by poets of
360 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
many lands to give a sentimental reason for the mossy greenery of this Rose. The moss is in no sense incongruous, yet it has an element of the un- expected. To many it gives the highest point of
Hundred-leaved Rose.
charm and beauty to the Rose. I can scarcely enter into this feeling ; though as a child I know a gift of a Moss Rose was an act of unspeakable sentiment. Infinite in number have been the Moss Roses since Shakespeare's day, but still is the Moss Rose, the
Our Grandmothers' Roses 361
common pink Moss Rose, the Graci/is, the best of all its kind.
We have seen the few Roses of Pliny's day and even of the times of the War of the Roses ; our grand- mothers had more to choose from, but after all they had a short Rose-list. Nor had they Rose gardens. Their Roses grew among other plants. Often a single bed would be given to Roses, particularly those which needed special treatment; but it would be a small bed. Our grandmothers' gardens never presented the expanse of tall thickly set sticks and scant low growing foliage too often seen in a Rose garden, and suggesting Hogarth's famous drawing on a ticket for a flower-show of a monkey watering a row of leafless sticks. Why, I have a photograph of George Bancroft's Rose garden which I simply could not persuade myself to display in this book. I looked at it a score of times and then thrust it in a remote writing-desk ; I am glad now 1 did not show to any one that monstrous stretch of well-kept lawn in the foreground with two long beds of unvary- ing tying sticks and scarce a bit of foliage or bloom, standing well up against the background of tall hedges. For I saw that garden when I was a child. I recall distinctly that I wearied over the long stroll down the path, and the interminable and eager dis- cussion over certain Rose plants which seemed to me scarce more than Hogarth's exhibition sticks, and not worth any glance, much less any animated talk. And I longed to go home, when suddenly we came upon the Tea-Roses — the finest in this country, the first I had ever seen in any number. I have
362 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
never forgotten them. It seems to me that I had never smelt Tea-Roses until that afternoon, the beauty and scent of those wonderful Tea-Roses is imprinted forever in my brain.
In some vicinities the Tea-Roses acclimated them- selves to a wonder. Martha McCulloch Williams wrote to me in a letter of one Tea-Rose — known as the Triompbe de Luxembourg — in her early Ten- nessee home, where the land was not far from virgin soil, and where thrips, red spider, rose-chafer, and lady-bug were entirely unknown : —
u The Luxembourg is the Queen of Tea-Roses to my mind, much the shape of the Catherine iMermet, but richer, and of finer foliage, and colored beyond all other Roses, not even excepting Glolre de Dijon. It is hardy in Tennessee ; here in New York I dare say it would not -live out. Old bushes give the best flowers, and those which opened on the very edge of the forest were always finest of all. The heart was variable but generally creamy pink with golden suffusions. The outer petals run between deep red bronze and copper-yellow. It was, I think, one of the earliest high-colored Teas perfected. It grew rampantly, and had so much red blood that the leaves and flowers at first unfolding were almost as high-colored as the flowers. It is my Rose of Roses.
One great question must be ever in a Rose garden, — whether to plant only Roses, or to cover the ground with some low-blossoming plant, or some greenery ? One friend has planted under every Rose-bush blue Pansies. Some were very pale blue, some a cheerful dark blue, but a pure sapphire color prevailed ; as the Roses in bloom when I visited
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Our Grandmothers' Roses 363
this garden were nearly all yellow tinted Tea-Roses, this garden seemed to me in perfect taste. My sister has the best "cover-ground' I know in the first year's growth of Adlumia, what we always called Virgin's Bower. It is as graceful as Maiden Hair Fern and crowds her garden.
I saw a Rose garden last June at the country house of a friend, - - a house which had been the homestead for a hundred and fifty years, when the question of planting had been solved with little planning or pondering. It was simply a narrow bed around the edge of the semicircular brick wall of a little walled garden or recess ; on it were trained Seven Sisters Roses, and all the varied pinkness of Prairie Roses. In the beds blossomed only the few Roses of our grandmothers, and oh ! the ineffable fragrance ! Damask Roses ! Cabbage Roses ! Velvet Roses ! oh, the perfection of perfume that poured from their pink petals ! There were pretty pillars of Madame Plantier Roses at each end of the semicircular bed, each with hundreds of snowy blossoms ; and low- growing Moss Roses, and a few ancient Tea-Roses which would fill the spaces with scant bloom later in the summer. Ferns were planted at the base of the brick wall among the Roses, — the common every- day loveliness of New England Ferns. Some of these had fully plumed curves of rich green bursting open ; others sent up great quilled ribs of curious form with no leaf-promise in them, and with only a few folded blades thrust out which would in two days open into exquisite fronds. Others were shyly rolled up in cinnamon-colored Catherine wheels and pale
364 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday
brown chrysalis cases like some dull butterfly. Lovely, most lovely, were all these young Ferns among the old Roses. An old stone sun-dial stood on the grass at what was the centre of the circle. Fairy Roses were planted around it, and would bloom when the other Roses were gone. This garden had no mag- nificent single blooms such as our modern rosarians show to us, and some of the old bushes were sadly gray and broken ; but there was the lavish profusion of June to make us wholly happy while it lasted — with no thought for the future months.
Let me close these reminiscences of old-time Roses with these verses by John Russel Hayes, which seem written in the very atmosphere of our grandmothers' garden : —
"O stately Roses, yellow, white, and red,
As Omar loved you, so we love to-day. Some Roses with the vanished years have sped,
And some our mother's mothers laid away Among their bridal-gowns' soft silken folds,
Where each pale petal for their sons a precious memory holds.
"And some we find among the yellowed leaves
Of slender albums, once the parlor's pride, Where faint-traced Ivy pattern interweaves
The mottoes over which the maiden sighed. O faded Roses, did they match your red,
Those fair young cheeks whose color long ago with yours has fled ?
" And still doth balmy June bring many a Rose
To crown the happy garden's loveliness. Against the house the old Sweet-brier grows
And cheers its sadness with soft, warm caress, As fragrant yet as in the far-off time
When that old mansion's fairest mistress taught its shoots to climb.
Our Grandmothers' Roses 365
" Enveloped in their tufted velvet coats
The sweet, poetical Moss Roses dream ; And petal after petal softly floats
From where the Tea Rose spreads her fawn and cream, — Like fairy barks on tides of air they flow,
And rove adown the garden silently as drifting sno
"Near that old Rose named from its hundred leaves
The lovely Bridal Roses sweetly blush ; The climbing Rose across the trellis weaves
A canopy suffused with tender flush ; The Damask roses swing on tiny trees,
And here the Seven Sisters glow like floral pleiades.
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"But sweeter far in this old garden close
To loiter 'mid the lovely, old-time flowers, To breathe the scent of Lavender and Rose,
And with old poets pass the peaceful hours. Old gardens and old poets, — happy he
Whose quiet summer days are spent much in such sweet com- pany ! ' :