I don't think there's anything unsound there Patricia.

Two different roses:

1. your rose, the almost thornless "Rose In Commerce As Adam" that definitely isn't 'Adam' but there's a very good probability it's 'Mme Bérard'.

and 2. the "Rose in Commerce as Mme Bérard" (in Australia at least) that definitely isn't 'Mme Bérard' but 'E. Veyrat Hermanos'

The story of the discovery of Rose 1 (Not Adam, probably Mme Bérard) can be read in The Beales and Money 1977 book 'Georgian and Regency Roses', where it is pictured on the cover and also opposite the Introduction, titled 'Unidentified Tea Rose'.
("This well-portrayed example of an early Tea Rose is growing among several contemporaries at Flaxmoor House, Caston, Norfolk. There is no real evidence of when it was planted, but it is undoubtedly of great age.
Theories as to its true identity have been numerous, but mid-nineteenth-century descriptions come down strongly in favour of 'Adam', one of the first true Tea Roses if not the first. Later descriptions confuse the matter somewhat.
It is a sumptuous rose which, even in anonymity, will perhaps whet your appetite for the next few pages.").

Keith Money mentions this same rose in his 1985 'Bedside Book of Old Fashioned Roses'. Not far into the book, on the page opposite the photo of 'Dame Edith Helen' he writes, "Back to the first Norfolk garden of mine…Norfolk had been a good county for rose breeders and growers, and it was certainly more resistant than most areas to those besotted changes of fashion emanating from the Dean of Rochester and the Reverend Foster-Mellier. At the turn of the century, Norfolk was all very much as Nelson knew it.... Thus outside my breakfast room … could be found Gloire de Dijon of 1853 - though just possibly Mme. Falcot of five years later; as well as the supposed first Tea, Adam, 1833. Against the former apple store I found not only Souvenir de la Malmaison (1842) but also the intoxicating Reine Marie-Henriette (1878) - the true, not the fake; Souvenir du Dr Jamain of 1865; the Climbing Rene Andre of 1901; and … Dame Edith Helen…"

So sometime after the early years of 'might be Adam', it became unquestioned Adam on the Beales catalogue and was sent far and wide for people to grow and study and recognise an error.


We understood the error of the identification of Rose 2 - (the "Rose in Commerce as Mme Bérard" - in Australia at least - that isn't 'Mme Bérard' but 'E. Veyrat Hermanos') was an Australia-only one, but reading Peter Beales' description of the rose he calls 'Mme Bérard' in Classic Roses - "bright pink and yellow", "good mid- to dark green foliage" and "growth generous for a climbing Tea", we can recognise features of 'E. Veyrat Hermanos' while not one of these features is a good match for "Not Adam, probably Mme Bérard".

A theory to keep in mind with all the other theories in case something comes up to add weight or refute it.

And if after reading that your head is spinning, think of it as a good example for why it's a very bad idea to 'identify' foundlings on a hunch or scant evidence.