Chapter 1

The Development Of The Modern Rose

The origin of the rose is quite prehistoric; geologists tell us of evidence of its existence more than thirty-five million years ago. It is mentioned in many of the earliest writings, and it has been found indigenous to almost every part of the Northern Hemisphere, even to Iceland and Lapland, but never south of the Equator.

The Earliest Roses

All the original roses were five-petalled, but double roses have existed since long before any surviving records were made. These are really freaks, in that many of their stamens have been metamorphosed into petals. The earliest roses are usually referred to as rose species. They vary in color from white to deep pink and dull red, while yellow is represented by the double Rosa hemispherica (R. sulfhured) and, probably of earlier origin, the single JR. foetida (the Yellow Austrian Briar) Plate 3, a very misleading name, for its original habitat was from Crimea to Thibet, far from Austria. Its companion, R. foetida var. hicolor, is the only bicoloured species, having, in most flowers, petals that are of a deep copper colour on the inner side and vivid yellow on the reverse; in some of its flowers yellow appears in stripes, on half a petal, or even more, in place of the darker colour.

R. centifolia (the Cabbage Rose, Hundred Petalled Rose, or Provence Rose) in the gardens of Midas is described by Herodotus (about 484-425 B.C.), "The Father of History". Hippocrates (460-361 B.C.), Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), Virgil

 (70-19 B.C.), Ovid (43 B.c-A.D.17), Horace (65-8 B.C.), and Juvenal (A.D. 60-140) all laud the rose. Omar Khayyam (A.D. 1050-1123) knew R. damascena (the Damask Rose) Plate 63 , and it still grows on his grave at Nishapur. Pliny (about A.D. 23-79) m his Naturalis historia mentions twelve varieties, including R. centifolia, though most of them are singles.

In the House of Frescoes at Knossus, Crete, is the earliest known European depiction of a rose, painted about 1550 B.C. It had six petals instead of the usual five probably an error.

Theophrastus (about 372-278 B.C.), "the Father of Botany", writes of the rose at great length and shows a remarkable knowledge of its characteristics, its distribution over the then known world, and its cultivation, including planting, pruning, and growing from cuttings or seed. He also writes of the manufacture of rose perfume.

Britain has few indigenous species, and most of these were widely scattered over Europe so early that it is impossible to state the actual place of origin. Travellers, traders, and the Crusaders took seeds and plants home from many countries.

The First Rose Catalogues And Books

The first printed catalogue of roses is that of Gerard's garden in Holborn, dated 1596. Sixteen names, in Latin, are listed, all species and variations and sports of species.

In 1696 Plunkenet added R. multiflora (the Polyantha or Japanese Rose) and R. laevigata to our lists. In 1723 Ray enumerated thirty-seven varieties, including R. virginiana, the first rose of American origin cultivated in Europe. It had probably been introduced many years earlier. It was not until 1789 that Sir Joseph Banks took R. chinensis (Plate 2) to England. This species is known by many other names, the most common of which are R. indica, the Chinese Monthly Rose, Blush Monthly, and the Bengal Rose. It is generally regarded as a native of Central China and not of India. The East India Company of our history books did not confine its trading to India but covered almost all of the Orient, which came to be referred to vaguely as "The Indies", probably from the name of the company. Consequently, many plants, for example R. indica, Azdea indica, and Daphne indica, which are all natives of China or Japan, had the wrong specific term of indica applied to them by early botanists, and the name has been retained. There are many variations of R. chinensis in colour from pink to red and in habit from the smallest dwarf growers to climbers. The blooms, too, vary from single to double in formation. The hardiness, perpetual blooming, and adaptability of R. chinensis are remarkable. Of all the very old roses it is by far the most commonly grown today, and I know of several hedges planted in quite recent years.

In 1799 Miss Lawrance published the first illustrated book devoted exclusively to roses; it contained ninety plates. Then came Roessig's book (1802), with one hundred and twenty-one coloured plates, and later Redout£'s work (1817), with one hundred and seventy-two plates.

At this stage, less than a hundred and forty years ago, all existing roses were species, sports of species, or chance hybrids of species. Man had not long discovered the sexuality of plants, and had, still more recently, begun to apply his knowledge by pollinating plants artificially. Thus at the opening of the nineteenth century dawned a new era in floriculture and agriculture in general. All the ingredients since used for the vast and rapid improvement of the rose were at hand the whites, pinks, near reds, and yellows, the doubles and singles, the dwarfs and climbers, and the ever-blooming habit. These roses had perfume, petallage and a degree of form, but not the composite beauty we now look for, expect, and even take for granted  the brilliant reds, flames, and salmons, the lively pinks, the clear yellows, the vivid bicolours, and the clear whites, all with perfect spiral form and pointed centre, yet retaining their perfume. Now we have several near-blue roses.

In the few years immediately preceding and following the year 1800 the Empress Josephine, Napoleon's first wife, did a wonderful service to rose-growing by getting Dupont to collect all the varieties of roses that he could find, and having them planted at La Malmaison. Josephine's rose garden became famous for having the most comprehensive collection of varieties ever made up to that time. It was a very great achievement. Obviously, it contained only species, a few sports, and a very few accidental hybrids, for no other roses existed. In 1812 Dupont catalogued two hundred and eighteen such varieties of roses. The first display of rose blooms ever made was from the empress's garden in 1810. She was in disfavour with Napoleon by this time, and was not allowed to attend the display. She died in 1814, a year before the battle of Waterloo.

In those early days many thousands of rose plants were raised from seed. Being of simple and unmixed ancestry, each species produced, from seed, plants of identical habit and bloom characteristics with those of the parent, except in the very rare instances of accidental hybrids. Seedlings were raised in large numbers even in far-flung outposts of the French Empire, in particular. On the Island of Bourbon (since renamed Reunion), east of Madagascar, these seedlings were used for hedge-making. Only two species were grown there, R. chinensis and R. gallica. An accidental hybrid of these two species occurred there and was recognized some years later, in 1817, by a visiting French botanist as being new and distinct. It was called the Bourbon Rose (R. borhonica) and was taken to France in 1819 under the name of Rose Edward. The first variations, raised by Desprez, appeared in 1831. In 1888 William Paul listed forty-six varieties of the Bourbon Rose, in addition to thirty-eight Bourbon Perpetuals and eight Hybrid Bourbons all probably the result of recrossing R. borhonica on to R. chinensis. All of them bloom fairly constantly. Thus, by accident, came the first great step towards the rose, as we know it today.

In 1837 Laffay, yet another Frenchman, crossed R. dama-scena with a hybrid of R. borbonica and R. chinensis to produce our first Hybrid Perpetual rose. He named his new variety Rose du Roi. By 1840 twenty Hybrid Perpetuals were catalogued; none of them was yellow.

The Noisette Rose (R. noisetticma) was raised in South Carolina by either Philippe Noisette or John Champney by crossing the White Musk Rose with the Chinese Monthly Rose. It was taken to Paris by Louis Noisette, with whom it flowered for the first time in 1818. The bright-yellow climbing Hybrid Noisette, William Allen Richardson, was a favourite early in this century, but R. noisettiana has actually contributed very little to modern roses. In 1830 the Blush Sweet-scented Chinese Rose, one of the many varieties of R. chinensis, was crossed with the Yellow Tea-scented Rose, R. odorata, to give us our first Tea Rose. The former had been taken to England in 1809, and had double pink flowers. The latter is, itself, almost certainly a descendant of R. chinensis, and had reached England in 1824. Thus the Tea Rose came from a crossing of JR. chinensis on to a descendant, or hybrid of the same species, and this species had already played a major part in the development of the Bourbon Rose and the Hybrid Perpetual.

Fig. 1. The older rose and the modern Hybrid Tea.

The name Tea Rose may have been derived from an alleged resemblance in its perfume to that of tea, but it seems more probable that it was so named because both of the parent roses had been brought to England by the tea traders. The raising of the Tea Rose in England and, later, of the Hybrid Wichurai-anas in America are the only two great advances in rose history not made by Frenchmen.

By crossing a Hybrid Perpetual (Mme Victor Verdier) with a Tea Rose (Mme Brevy), in 1865, Pierre Guillot of Lyons produced the first rose to be classed as a Hybrid Tea, though for some years it was called a Hybrid Perpetual. He named the beautiful long, pointed new rose La France, and it is still to be found in a few gardens, though it has disappeared from almost all nurserymen's catalogues. It marked a tremendous improvement, and the beginning of the present-day type of rose.

Thus in the nineteenth century roses advanced from the species to the Hybrid Teas. Actually, it had all happened within about fifty years, and it was mainly due to the extensive use of R. chinensis in the hybridizing. The ever-blooming habit and the good form of its double types had been transmitted to the progeny, and the hybridists had carefully selected and re-selected their seedlings, aiming all the time at longer petals and more pointed formation. Though they were not produced in large numbers, the autumn blooms of the Hybrid Perpetual type had made the name seem appropriate at the time of their introduction, but it has since become very misleading, for the Hybrid Teas, which have succeeded them, bloom much more constantly.

Enthusiasm for roses grew as people realized how freely the new types bloomed and how easy they were to grow. They became the flowers for the people, for the cottages, and for the roadside. In 1876 a group of enthusiasts in England formed the National Rose Society, the first body of its kind. The Americans followed in 1898. In 1900 came Australia's first Rose Society, the National Rose Society of Victoria. Since then all States (except Tasmania) and New Zealand have formed their own Societies.

With the added interest came greater numbers of roses, especially Hybrid Teas. In 1890 William Paul, the celebrated English rosarian, listed six hundred and sixty-one Hybrid Per-petuals, but only six Hybrid Teas. By 1900 he listed sixty-five Hybrid Teas. Hybridists were becoming more and more discerning in the selection of seed and pollen parents, and so the new roses were showing rapid improvement.

Top left: Floribunda rose, ELSE'S RIVAL. Top right: Floribunda rose, KAREN POULSEN. Bottom: R. chinensis. Plate 2 Plate 3

About 1900 Pernet, the world-famous French rose hybridist, crossed the Austrian Yellow Rose (R. foetida) with Antoine Ducher, a red Hybrid Perpetual, not one of the newer Hybrid Teas, as one may have expected. This gave us the first of our modern highly coloured roses; he aptly named it Soleil d'Or. This variety is an ancestor of most modern roses. From it they have gained in colour, but, unfortunately, lost in constitution, as one would expect with the Austrian Copper Briar heredity. Their wood, especially in the earlier varieties, was soft and open in texture; their foliage was sparse, and they were very subject to black spot and constitutional die-back, though not to mildew. Their perfume was altered and often lessened. Growth was short and thin. However, despite all of these forms of deterioration, the world wanted them for their sensational colourings. In honour of their great introducer these roses were called Pernetianas. Within the next forty years these early hybrids of R. foetida had been re-crossed on to Hybrid Teas so many times that the Pernetiana characteristics almost disappeared except that the vivid colours were retained, and there is still a slightly greater weakness for black-spot infection. Today we do not see new roses that can be classed as Pernetianas, but the term is by no means obsolete, in that many of the earlier roses that came under this classification remain, and retain their popularity. They are steadily being replaced by roses that are equally good or even better in colour, form, growth, and perfume, but do not have the faults of their Pernetiana antecedents.

It may seem strange that Pernet not only used a Hybrid Perpetual as one parent for his revolutionary hybridization, but chose a yellow species of single formation (R. foetida) as the other parent, instead of R. hemispherica with its double formation. They were the only two bright-yellow species. This choosing may have been mere chance, or it may have been that R. hemispherica would not cross with another rose, for there appear to be no hybrids of it. However, poor as is the constitution of R. foetida, we are fortunate that Pernet preferred it, for R. hemispherica is much weaker and more prone to die-back, so much so that the species itself is almost extinct today.

R. wichuraiana (the Memorial Rose) Plate 4 is a native of Korea and Eastern China, and has evergreen foliage. The German botanist Wichura introduced it into Europe in 1886, but it was not until 1902 that Perkins, of America, distributed the first Hybrid Wichuraiana, Dorothy Perkins, the result of crossing the species with a Hybrid Perpetual. It was soon followed by others, almost all climbers with long flexible canes. In 1909 came the Orleans Rose, from M. Levavasseur, of Orleans, marking the beginning of still another new type. It was a pink descendant of R. folycmtha. Very soon, mostly by sporting, this type became quite numerous and varied in colour.

It is noteworthy that in this development there had been seven main species as ancestors. Only one (R. gallica) was indigenous to Europe, while six came from Asia. They are R. chinensis, R. odorata, R. polyantha, R. vnchuraiana, R. Amnct scena, and R. foetida. The last two came, respectively, from around Damascus, and, as already stated, from the southern boundaries of Europe and Asia. The other four are all Chinese in origin.

Equally notable is the part played by Frenchmen, particularly from districts round Lyons, in this development. Probably the greatest work in modern rose hybridizing is still being done in this same district. Guillot, Pernet-Ducher, Gaujard, Meil-land, Mallerin, and others have been not only great hybridists but have made the great forward steps in rose history, except the raising of the Tea Rose and the Hybrid Wichuraiana.

Hybrids of R. gigcmtea, first- and second-generation crosses, have been given to the rose world by the late Mr Alister Clark and others. They are evergreen and ever-blooming roses eminently suited to temperate zones, where neither extreme heat nor extreme cold interferes with these characteristics. Discovered in Burma in 1888, R. gigcmtea (Plate 23) is a rampant climber with big five-petalled white flowers and handsome large glossy disease-resistant foliage. It blooms only in early spring. The characteristic foliage is retained in most of the hybrids.

In still more recent years many nurseries have sent out roses of yet another type. They vary greatly in form from singles to doubles, and from small florets to blooms of almost the size of a small Hybrid Tea, but all are characterized by bearing their blooms in groups or panicles. From this habit they have come to be called Floribundas or Hybrid Polyanthas preferably the former. Karen Poulsen Plate 2 (Poulsen, 1932), Madge Prior (Prior, 1934) and Orange Triumph Plate 4 (Kordes, 1937) were early members of this group. At the present time nearly as many Floribunda novelties as new Hybrid Teas are being distributed each year.

Hybrid Perpetuals and Tea Roses are rarely seen today; the Hybrid Tea (with, in most cases, some Pernetiana heredity) is the rose of the middle 1900s, associated, in particular, with Floribundas and, to a lesser degree, with Hybrid Giganteas and Hybrid Wichuraianas. We rarely see a rose raised forty years ago. A well-known Australian firm catalogued about five hundred varieties in 1952, of which only fourteen existed in 1920. It seems, almost invariably, that the people who sigh for "the old roses" have never grown either the old or the new varieties. If people asked for the so-called old roses (and nobody seems clearly to understand what these people mean by the term) our nurserymen would grow them; it would mean more business for them. Similarly, our Australian and New Zealand Rose Annuals, first published in 1928, have each contained lists of roses recommended for various purposes compiled from lists submitted by competent and well-mformed rose-growers, mostly amateurs who have no ulterior motives in advocating new varieties. Of the roses on the original lists very few remain four of the twenty-four exhibition roses, and three of the twenty-four garden roses.

Progress is ruthless and knows no sentiment, even with roses. One occasionally finds a gardener fondly clinging to some old variety among a collection of newer sorts, or even to a whole garden of "old-fashioned" roses, but that is more in the way of a collector of antiques than of the general rose-loving public.

Year by year the world's hybridists sow many thousands of rose seeds and carefully watch the plants grow and bloom. The few that are chosen as promising are observed for several seasons, and from them only a very small number are selected for distribution as new varieties. This work goes on in many countries, especially in France, Northern Ireland, England, Germany, Holland, Luxemburg, Spain, America, Italy, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

Probably well over a hundred million seeds have been sown to raise the thirty-odd thousand rose varieties that have been distributed for sale so far. Most of the well-established hybridists send out a few novelties each year; in addition, some come from less regular sources of supply. The vast majority of novelties fall below expectations and are soon discarded. The rose-growers, for the most part the home gardeners, are the sole arbiters, and of the thousands of varieties offered they have retained only a few hundred. Of these, little more than fifty varieties are grown in any one Australian State in sufficient numbers to justify their being deemed popular. The ardent rose enthusiast will grow others, and enthusiasts will differ in their choice, depending on the specific purpose for which they grow their roses, for these people have different views and purposes, and choose accordingly.

Each year Australian nurserymen import approximately one hundred new varieties. They are the best of that year's productions, but very few are still catalogued five years later. In the past, all of them were brought as plants by sea, but in recent years many have come by air transport; some come as plants, but in most instances only the budding-wood is sent, a method that has proved better in all ways.

Every novelty is sent out with glowing catalogue descriptions, in many cases amounting to obvious overstatements, even though each variety was, almost certainly, a good rose in the nursery. We realize that some roses will not tolerate some climates, and that others, even though they will grow in all climates, are especially suited to unusual circumstances of heat, cold, humidity, or sandy soils. The outstanding fact remains, however, that, except in very rare instances, we find, on comparing results with those of growers in other countries, that a good rose with them is a good rose with us, and so we feel justified in wondering why some novelties were ever distributed. Local nurserymen's comments afford a better guide than raisers' descriptions. The trying-out of novelties is fascinating for one who has space to do so, and does not mind the expense and the frequent shattering of expectations for such there will be. Novelties are not to be recommended to any but enthusiasts in search of the very latest in roses.

Diversity Of Types

At the commencement of this century novelty roses imported into Australia seldom exceeded a dozen each year, and one could rely on every one being a novelty in its true sense a definite advance in some way. The length of petal, the form, and the freedom of blooming were all improving, and most of the new roses had a strong perfume.

Then came the changes consequent to Pernet-Ducher's work  losses and gains, but the hybridists by hard, persistent, and highly intelligent work have so interbred, over and over again, Pernetianas, Hybrid Teas, Teas, Hybrid Perpetuals, Poly-anthas, and others that clear lines of demarcation now seldom exist. We have been lifted out of our troubles and have better roses than ever before. Retaining good growth, good disease-resistance, good form, good stem, and good perfume, we have roses that bloom more constantly and with hitherto undreamtof colourings. Vermilion, scarlet, claret, tomato-red, orange-red, silvery buff, orange, copper, apricot, gold, and salmon pink, as well as the plain reds, pinks, yellows, creams, and whites all as self-colours or as bicolours, in all the many possible combinations have ceased to amaze us. We have them as healthy Hybrid Teas and as Floribundas and often with climbing sports.

The blue rose is becoming a less remote possibility, and several oversea hybridists now have mauve Hybrid Tea varieties. Until quite recently, Veilchenblau, a climbing Hybrid Wichuraiana, and Baby Faurax, a dwarf Polyantha, remained as our only examples of near-blue roses of any type. In 1948 Eugene S. Boerner gave us Lavender Pinocchio, which is a large-flowered Floribunda. In the young blooms the colour is undoubtedly lavender; faint pink shades intrude as the flowers age. Meanwhile Samuel McGredy had produced Grey Pearl, a Hybrid Tea, which most people disliked, but it is proving to be a useful parent from which to develop new mauve varieties. McGredy's best rose of this colour, so far, is Lilac Time. It is about the size of the pink rose, Picture, and is a true unshaded and unfading mauve. Prelude, from Francis Meillard, is bigger but paler and looser. However, really clear blue is a colour so foreign to roses that it is likely to be a long time before we see a variety approaching the colour of gentians, delphiniums, or cornflowers.

Adaptability

The modern rose is the flower of the people and the plant for any garden, public or private, large or small. Let no one tell you it is anything but the easiest and most productive of all garden plants. It thrives in any average garden soil; it rewards you for food and watering, it lives for many years, it requires no special conditions, and only very elementary gardening knowledge. For variety of possible uses no plant approaches it. Soil, drainage, planting, pruning, manuring, and general care are all of some consequence, but the rose is so tolerant and adaptable that it would take serious neglect to interfere greatly with the wonderful performance we have grown to expect.

Particularly does this apply to the Floribundas. Ideal in all climates, they meet a need for a hardier, more rugged, easy-to-grow race of roses that give an abundant mass of blooms and colour for garden and home from early spring to early winter. Their alluring range of colours, sizes, and forms is being increasingly appreciated.

One's first thoughts of roses inevitably go to the vast array of wonderful modern Hybrid Teas that so far have provided most of our blooms and our best individual specimens. They comprise what all the world regards as Nature's supreme floral creation, but we have now reached the stage where we can have roses especially suited for any purpose, whether it be for florist's work, home decoration, or garden display. For supreme beauty with utility in low borders, specimen shrubs, impenetrable hedges, pot plants, bedding displays, or covers for pergolas, arches, stumps, pillars, fences, or any unsightly objects, the rose, in some form, will answer all requirements. If so desired, one may choose evergreens instead of the usual deciduous types.

To achieve these many purposes roses are grown in a variety of ways as dwarfs, or bushes, for general garden planting, specimen plants, shrubs, or hedges, as climbers, as pillar or tripod roses, and as standards or trees. Bush roses send up their main branches from about ground level. True climbers produce long canes with no terminal flower-bud; some are much more vigorous than others. The less rampant climbers lend themselves admirably for training up pillars or tripods, and so are grouped as "pillar roses". Standard roses are classed as "quarter", "half", "three-quarter", or "full standard" according to the length of the stock on to which they have been budded. The stock of a quarter standard is fifteen to eighteen inches high; that of a half standard is about two feet high; that of a three-quarter standard, the type most commonly grown, is about thirty inches high, and the seldom-seen full standard is about three feet high.

Paintings of the Middle Ages show the rose used for hedge-making. Although those early varieties (all species, of course) bloomed only in the spring, it was a bountiful crop of blossom on a fairly compact hedge, and no such beauty at any stage of the year is produced by any other hedge. In Australia, early settlers planted many hedges of the Sweet Briar (R. rubiginosa), but very few of them have been cared for, in any way, for many years. Of the early roses, only one other seems to have been used to any extent in Australia a double red variety of R. chinensis. It makes an excellent over-blooming hedge, which can be kept neatly trimmed to any height from three to six feet.

Lorraine Lee, distributed in 1924, is in such demand today that our nurserymen never have sufficient plants. Evergreen and ever-blooming, it is a perfect hedge-rose. For many years Lorraine Lee and Sunny South (taller, more deciduous, but with a flower that many people prefer to Lorraine Lee) were almost our only hedge roses, other than the species, but now many others, especially Floribundas, are being grown in greater numbers. Chapter IV contains a list of hedge roses. By selecting suitable varieties one can have rose hedges, or borders, of any height from eighteen inches to ten feet.

In a general garden almost any of the varieties suitable for hedge-making are superb as specimen shrubs, or spaced in borders amongst annuals and perennials for spots of colour from early October to June. Some, particularly the Floribundas, give their best effect when planted in groups of three, five, or more.

Screens

Evergreen types of roses make ideal covers or screens, whether grown as climbers, shrubs, or hedges. Most Hybrid Gigantea climbers are evergreen, and will tolerate more bending down than will the climbing Hybrid Teas. Still more adaptable are the Hybrid Wichuraianas with their long, thin flexible canes. They bloom only in the late spring, but in amazing profusion, and completely cover objects or hang down over walls or embankments. Supports for them should be strong, for they grow freely, and produce a huge mass in a few years.

Miniature Roses

Miniature roses are rapidly gaining favour in Australia. No one can fail to admire these most interesting, dainty little plants that produce large numbers of perfect, tiny flowers and are so easy to grow in rockeries, pots, or window-boxes, or make excellent bordering, six to nine inches high. As the plants are so small, the stems are of course too short for these roses to be of use as cut-flowers. They bloom for long periods if seed-pods are not allowed to set freely. Just as with other plants, pots containing miniature roses must not be allowed to become dry; if sunk in the garden when not in flower, the pots may be lifted and brought indoors when the next flush of blooms appears. In very recent years there has been a great increase in the number of varieties of miniature roses and their range of colours.

Top: R. wichuraiana, the parent of all Wichuraiana hybrids. Bottom: ORANGE TRIUMPH, the first great advance in Hybrid Polyantha or Floribunda roses. Plate 4 Top: CRIMSON GLORY. Bottom: A basket of white roses (MRS HERBERT STEVENS). Plate 5

Shrubs

Apart from their antiquity and relationship to our modern roses, many of the species provide us with attractive shrubs and much interesting and decorative material. The blooms vary greatly in colour and form, but, in the case of the species, except R. chinensis, they are rare after the lavish spring flowering. The foliage ranges in type beyond the realization of most people, and includes leaf forms quite unlike that which one expects on a rose. The hips, too, vary tremendously in colour, form, and size, from small ovoid orange seed-pods to large dark-red globular types, and others that are quite huge and urn-shaped.

Lorraine Lee is probably the rose most commonly grown as a shrub in Australia, yet it is almost unknown in Europe and America. Its evergreen habit, freedom and constancy in blooming, and its delightful perfume, coupled with its tolerance to trimming much in the way of other shrubs, make it ideal for this purpose.

In England, Germany, and America a new group of roses is being developed. They are tall-growing bushes, too big for conventional garden uses, and yet not of climbing habit. Most of them are hybrids of very hardy species, and they are useful as shrubs or in the back row of large flower beds.

The most recent development in types of roses has been made in the United States of America. The new group, known as Grandifloras, consists of varieties that have flowers not much larger than those of Floribundas, but they are borne singly on fairly long stems. Queen Elizabeth II and Roundelay are already very popular overseas.

Cut Flowers

The cut-flower and florist trade is not as developed in Australia as in America, England, and Europe, where many millions of rose blooms are sold each year. In most instances growers limit their varieties to a very small number often only three or four. By this means each nurseryman is able to provide flowers for stated purposes either in mixed colours or in masses of some stipulated colour. A large proportion of these roses are grown in glass-houses; the flowers have very long stems, and the petals are undamaged by wind, but the cost of production is high and so is the retail price. Roses grow easily out of doors in Australia, and I know of only one firm here that grows them in glasshouses.

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