The Garden Roses of India

Abstract

THE principal garden roses cultivated in Europe and in India may be traced to Western Asia and China. The old-fashioned summer roses, which were the ornament of gardens in Europe forty to fifty years ago, are mostly referred to Rosa gallica, which has its home in South Europe and Western Asia, and to Rosa centifolia and damascena, which probably came from the mountains of Armenia and Northern Persia. All these are dis-inguished by the incomparable delicacy of their aroma, and of the two last-named kinds one or the other is cultivated on a large scale in Southern France, Italy, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Persia, and Northern India, for rose-water and essence of roses (attar). The flowering season of these kinds is short, lasting a few weeks only, and it was an important event for horticulture when, towards the close of last century, the China roses were introduced in Europe. The most important of these was Rosa indica, thus called by Linnæus because it was brought from India, where it has long been grown in gardens. Its home, however, is not India, but China, and its great value consists in this, that it flowers throughout summer and autumn, hence the name autumnal rose, also monthly rose (Monatsrose). For this reason a variety was called Rosa semperflorens. Another variety, described under the name of Rosa fragrans, distinguished by its strong though not always very delicate scent, became the parent of the tea-roses. By crossing these kinds and other species with the old garden roses, the numberless varieties of hybrid perpetuals and tea-roses have been obtained, which now ornament our gardens in Europe as well as in India.