Memorial Plants: Part 2 - Roses
Part 1 - Trees | Part 3 - Memorial Plants and Planting Plan | May 2010 Update
As I write these notes the England Rugby Team is making heavy weather in the game against Italy, but the occasional success is marked with a flash across the screen of the team emblem - the red and white Tudor Rose. This rose represents unity in a country divided by civil strife - not in 2009, but at the end of the War of the Roses in 1485!
The rose has occupied a prominent place in many cultures, prehistoric, Chinese and, more recently, Greek and Roman. The Romans suspended a rose above a council meeting to indicated confidentiality - hence our legal term 'sub rosa'. Christians in the Middle Ages referred to the Virgin Mary as the 'Mystic Rose' (see English Hymnal No. 352, v.2). The symbolism of the rose persists today. Millions of red roses are given on St. Valentine's Day as a symbol of love. Yellow stands for friendship and white for purity. The RHS adopted the Tudor Rose as the highest accolade at the Hampton Court Flower Show.
The rose featured prominently in ancient art. A fresco in a villa in Pompeii (buried in AD79) includes a rose very similar to the Tudor Rose. Medieval Flemish paintings often include arches, trellis and arbours clothed in red and white roses. In architecture the Rose Window features in many buildings - York Minster, Notre Dame and Chartres Cathedral for example. Medicinally, the rose is a very rich source of vitamins (there is more vitamin C in rose hip syrup than in orange juice) and its high content of herbal chemicals has led to wide usage over the centuries.
But the British obsession with roses is based on their colour, form and fragrance. The first English Rose Garden was at Romsey Abbey in 1092 and nearby is the current national collection of old roses at Mottisfont Abbey (I contacted the head gardener to check the uncertain accuracy of some of these notes).
In the St. Lawrence Churchyard, we are excluding native species and the hundreds of species and hybrids introduced from the 17th Century onwards and are restricting the plantings to the three types introduced in the Roman to Tudor periods. These are Rosa Alba (Great White Rose), Rosa Gallica (French Rose) and Rosa Damascene (Damascus, or Damask, Rose).
Rosa Alba
Probably a Roman introduction but usually attributed to Eleanor of Provence in 1236.
R.a. 'Semiplena' (semi-double) became the White Rose of York.
R.a. 'maxima' was adopted by the Jacobites when James I succeeded Elizabeth, but there is some confusion over these two varieties.
R.a. 'Incarnata' (Maiden's Blush, Cuisse de Nymphe) is a double pink and was in cultivation well before 1557. Its fragrance is claimed to be reminiscent of hyacinths.
Rosa Gallica
R.g. 'Officinalis' (French Rose, Red Rose of Lancaster, Apothecaries Rose). Again probably Roman but usually dated 1275 when the 1st. Earl of Lancaster brought it from Provence and took it as the emblem of the House of Lancaster. It is very fragrant and the petals retain their fragrance even when dried and powdered.
R.g. 'Versicolor' (Rosa Mundi). A sport of R.A officianalis, pink and white streaked. The name could mean 'Rose of the World' or be a reference to Rosamunde, Henry II's mistress in the 13th Century. This rose is often confused with the Rosa Damascene 'Versicolor', the York and Lancaster Rose, but the bush is smaller and less thorny.
Rosa Damascene
Probably brought in by the Crusaders, but certainly before 1573.
R.d. 'Trigintipetala' (thirty petals) has been renamed 'Kazanlik' after the town in Bulgaria where it was used commercially for Attar of Roses. It is now known as 'Professeur Emile Perrot'.
R.d. 'Quatre Saisons' ('semperflorens'): as above but repeat flowering.
R.d. 'Versicolor' (York and Lancaster Rose). Two-tint pink/white semi-double. Fact and legend are rather blurred by references in Shakespeare's plays.
This is the background to our planting scheme. The practical realisation is taking place sometime in early March,2009.
John Gilbert
From The Beacon, March 2009
