Roses
History

unless specified otherwise, all pictures copyright ©2009 jocelen janon.

Rosa sericea pteracantha's red thorns.

The French missionaries roses.

by Jocelen Janon(2002).

The end of the 19th century saw a multiplication of explorations to China, particularly after the opium wars. If these wars represented a dramatic episode of the relations between China and Europe it also opened the doors to the plant hunters.
The beginning of the century saw the success of English explorers following the steps of Wallich, Hooker or Fortune(1).
The years 1860-1900 would see the success of the French missionaries.

The catholic missionaries in China were often persecuted, but after they cured the Emperor of malaria, the French missionaries were given a piece of land inside the Forbidden City. In 1703 a church was erected on that very place.
The French presence in China was well established when the war broke between the Celestial Empire and the Allies(2). At the end of this war the French were allowed to explore China. They started to collect plants in Tibet, Mongolia, Sichuan, Yunnan and these were sent to Paris.

The best-known missionary collector was Father Armand David who made three explorations in Mongolia and Western China, between 1862 and 1874.
He discovered a lot of plants that were new at that time, such as the Buddleia davidii, Acer davidii, Lilium davidii, Viburnum davidii, Davidia involucrate (the Dove Tree).
He even had Elapharus davianus, the Pere David’s deer, named after him and revealed the Giant Panda to Europe. Collected by David, Rosa davidii, named after him by E.H. Wilson in 1908, is an upright, vigorous bush with stout red prickles and heavy clusters of rosy pink blooms followed by pendulous rose hips.

Another collector was Father Jean Marie Delavay, who sent an enormous quantity of seeds and specimens to Paris, between 1867 and 1895.
With a fern-like foliage and big red thorns, the ‘winged rose’, Rosa sericea pteracantha (syn. R. omeiensis pteracantha) was found by Delavay in Yunnan. He sent the seeds to Mr De Vilmorin who grew it for the first time at his property of Les Barres. (Now a French national arboretum).
Around the same time as Father Delavay, Paul Guillaume Farges arrived and collected plants near the Northeast border of China. Like the other collectors he was sending his discoveries to the ‘Museum d’Histoire Naturelle’ in Paris and also to Maurice de Vilmorin’s nursery.
Clematis, Paulownias and Rhododendrons were some of the plants that Father Farges sent. More importantly for Rosarians they also included Rosa fargesii or R.moyesii fargesii, a bright pink form, in less vigorous, of R. moyesii.
This is a parent of Nevada.
Father Jean Andre Soulié, who between 1886 and 1905 sent more than 7000 specimens from Tibet to the Paris Museum, did some of the most remarkable work.
Described by Crepin in 1896, Rosa soulieana was sent by Soulié from Western Sichuan where grew on rocky hillsides. Bearing single white flowers, this shrub / climber (up to 4m) is a parent of ‘Kew Rambler’.
In 1905, conflict arose between Tibet and China. Caught by the Tibetan monks at Batang while trying to escape, Soulié was tortured for fifteen days and then shot. Father Bourdonnec , his assistant, was beheaded.
Meanwhile, in Paris, at the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, the plants that had been received were being named Rhododendron fargesi, Rhododendron davidii, Rhododendron delavayi, Rhododendron soulei…
Adrien Franchet (1834 – 1900) became in 1881 head of the Phanerogamy (3) department at the Museum.
Accomplished botanist, Franchet studied and published those studies about a large number of the eight million samples of the herbarium, the biggest collection in the world.(4)
Although he never visited China, Franchet contributed much to the progress of knowledge of the Chinese flora and was an authority on the Eastern Asia plants.
He published, with the help of Alphonse de Tremeau de Rochebrunne, the work of the missionaries.
To understand the scope of the work involved, it is enough to say that Father Delavay sent 200 000 specimens to Paris – 1500 were new species.
Adrien Franchet was at the centre of a network of missionaries, great botanists (like Crepin in Belgium) and Army servicemen stationed in Japan.
In 1860 Japan asked for France’s assistance in building a shipyard capable of handling large ships. Chosen for its resemblance to Toulon, Yokosuka saw, from 1866, construction which would last for 10 years. Amongst the team working here was a doctor who was in charge not only of the health of the French employees but also of the inhabitants of Yokosuka.
Paul Amedee Ludovic Savatier, a 1st class army doctor was highly passionate about botanics. Between 1867 and 1878 he sent more than 15000 plants to Franchet and Rochebrunne. The roses in this collection were then sent to François Crépin at the National Botanic Garden of Belgium.

One of the roses seemed new to Franchet who named it after Savatier’s wife, Lucie, in 1871.
Rosa Luciae had already been spotted in China around 1840 but was not documented or introduced to Europe.
François Crépin studied Rosa Luciae and confrmed it was a new variety. Later, in 1886, Crépin would confirm the difference with R. Wichuraiana.
Around 1900, R. Luciae would be used by Barbier in Orleans, to create his famous ramblers.
Franchet and Savatier observations would be described in their book “Enumeratio plantarum in Japonia".
Written in Latin and French, this book lists ten roses from Rosa banksiae to Rosa sieboldi, with particularly interesting descriptions of Rosa multiflora and Rosa rugosa.

Notes

Bibliography

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