Website/Catalog  (10 May 2023)  Includes photo(s).
 
Midnight Sun.  Hybrid Tea.  Medium, semi-double, borne mostly solitary, dark red flowers with black shading and red stamens and small buds. Mild fragrance. Attractive autumn foliage. Australian 1921.

Website/Catalog  (13 Jan 2019)  
 
Midnight Sun. (1921) Large, semi-double, flat. Deep red. Once thought lost. 1.2m

Magazine  (2012)  Page(s) 26. Vol 34, No. 2.  
 
John Nieuwesteeg. The Nieuwesteeg Heritage rose garden at Maddingley Park, Bacchus Marsh. In 2011, a collection of heritage roses, mainly uncommon old Hybrid Teas, was planted around the Rotunda. They are: ‘Midnight Sun’, Grant 1921. Given to us by Mary Allen of ‘Helora’, near Warragul, Vic., when she was 96.

Website/Catalog  (2002)  Page(s) 6.  
 
Hyb Tea. Midnight Sun, 1921. A rarity! Soft velvety semi-double open flowers of deep crimson adorn this somewhat prickly bush. To 1.2m.

Website/Catalog  (2002)  Page(s) 54.  
 
Midnight Sun – Grant, 1921. Another lovely almost single rose. The flowers of deep-crimson are flushed velvety black. The simplicity of this deep red rose is just so charming and is enhanced by the golden stamens and the dark foliage. A single that rose lovers must have.

Book  (2002)  Page(s) 85.  
 
Less exotic – in fact very far from exotic – is the Australian-bred ‘Midnight Sun’. The description was enticing – darkest red verging on black – but the bush turned out to be spindly (my fault perhaps) and the flowers, although the dark red I had been led to expect, were not remarkable. I think sentence has been passed on it and next winter may see it consigned to the scrap heap and replaced by something better able to live up to the performance of its aristocratic neighbours.

p262. Midnight Sun [included in a list of roses growing at Forest Hall].

Website/Catalog  (2002)  Page(s) 9.  
 
Midnight Sun (H. Tea, 1921). Almost single blooms of deep crimson flushed velvety black and dark foliage. Very recurrent. Old fashioned. Grafted only.

Website/Catalog  (2000)  Page(s) 8.  Includes photo(s).
 
Midnight Sun. Hybrid Tea. 1921. Australia. Single. Stamens prominent. Slightly fragrant. Recurrent. 1.6m x 1.4m. dark red.

Picture opposite p13

Magazine  (1998)  Page(s) 13. Vol 20, No. 1.  
 
John Nieuwesteeg¨ ….Lady Medallist. It’s very like our find of the rose Midnight Sun, from this 96 year old lady in Victoria in 1996. I felt straight away this has to be correct!

Magazine  (1997)  Page(s) 22. Vol 19, No. 2.  
 
My story is one of much interest to those with a passion for Australian bred roses, it tells of how the Patrick Grant rose Midnight Sun, once thought lost, was recently found growing in an unkempt garden in country Victoria. My sister Jean, a volunteer for the Association for the Blind in Warragul, telephoned me one evening in September last year with news of an elderly lady for whom Jean cares at the Association, who is an enthusiastic rose lover. Mary Allan of Allan Road Hallora, a little known country town just outside Warragul in Victoria, had recently celebrated her 95th birthday. According to Jean, growing in Mary’s garden at Hallora were the varieties Madame Lombard, Malmaison something or other (Mary’s own words), and one she called Midnight Sun. I was most excited. Midnight Sun, the hybrid Tea bred in 1921 by Patrick Grant of Macksville in New South Wales, is the cross of Star of Queensland and Red Letter Day, and had been thought lost, until now that is (flowers deep crimson flushed velvety black, semi-double). Grant also bred Golden Dawn and Salmon Spray, the former now again available, the latter still thought lost. With this great news, Jean and I visited Mary in October last year. As our car pulled into the driveway, I noticed Mrs. Allan standing on the veranda of her simple weatherboard house where she had lived since being married in 1926. Her eyesight failing, Mary called out “Is that you Jeannie?”. Mary seemed more than happy to discuss with us her small but unique rose collection. She had several roses growing in a bed near the front veranda. We came first upon Alister Clark’s Sunny South, growing nearest a vacant plot where Peace (1945) apparently once flourished; perhaps lost to a ferocious lawn mower at the hands of her grandchildren who, for some time now, have cut the grass around Mary’s house. Next came Madame Lambard, followed by a rose Mary called ‘Pink Ophelia’. I suggested it might be Madame Butterfly, knowing that it was not, but Mary was quite adamant: “No…it is Pink Ophelia”, she exclaimed. Then came one rather large Mrs. Herbert Stevens, followed by another vacant plot where Belle Siebrecht and La France once grew, Mary claimed. At the end of the veranda grew a very old, but not particularly large rose, leaning heavily on a geranium. This Mary said was Midnight Sun. Grown from a slip she received at least forty-five years ago from an aunt, the rose carried a few rather poor semi-double deep-red blooms. I have no doubts about the accuracy of Mary’s identification of this rose. She made no mistake about any of her roses, nor of the other shrubs and trees in the remains of what must have been a nice garden in its time. I nearly forgot to mention, not far from the house stood a shrub, I have no idea what it was, but my interest was in one open very double old rose showing through the shrub. I queried Mary as to its identification. She thought it to be ‘Malmaison’. She was quite right, it was Souvenir de la Malmaison. Mary then pointed to the side of the house where she once grew the Monthly Rose next to a Cecile Brunner, which still remains. Mary was not sure what happened to the Monthly Rose, otherwise known as Parson’s Pink China. My questions of Mary were, in effect a test of her knowledge and accuracy in identifying the rose plants in her garden. Her memory, I thought, was quite astounding for a lady of her age. Thus, I am quite certain that the budwood I took, and now the plants I have growing, are in fact Patrick Grant’s Midnight Sun. A limited quantity of Midnight Sun shall be made available in 1998. Much thanks goes to Mary Allan and Jean Radings. John S. Niewesteeg, Coldstream, Vic.