Newsletter  (Feb 2017)  Page(s) 17-18.  Includes photo(s).
 
[From "We the Fairies Bylthe and Antic", Part II, by Stephen Hoy, pp. 15-22]
Among the many varieties of roses included in her book is a very brief mention of the “Lawrienciana or Picayune” rose. From the text one concludes that it is a singular cultivar, pink in color, eminently everblooming “with undiminished vigor.” She comments that it “makes an ornament for the garden so striking that the wonder is that it has ever fallen out of popular favor and is not seen elsewhere than in old gardens with other old-fashioned plants that are still there simply because they are naturally hardy and long-lived.” Ms. Drennan also explains the use of the term “Picayune,” a reference to a small Spanish coin common in New Orleans culture. About the size of a dime, they were demonetized in 1857, becoming essentially worthless. Although in today’s parlance the term has come to mean “of little value” or “insignificant,” its Picayune association with the Lawranceanas is tied to the size of the coin, not its value.
Two “Picayune” roses – Lawranceana types – with traces of late 19th /early 20th century New Orleans heritage remain with us; however, whether they are/were named varieties or seedlings is a mystery unlikely to be solved. Ms. Drennan’s medium pink double-flowered Lawranceana may well have been passed along in New Orleans’ gardens in the fashion of many other roses. One HMF member, Sarah Jumel, relates that for decades several relatives living in New Orleans grew what they knew as ‘Pink Picayune,’ most likely purchased from a local nursery named Guillot’s [destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and with no apparent connection to the famous French family of the same name]. This same rose was discovered growing along old U.S. Highway 290, near Brenham, TX, near Mike Shoup’s Antique Rose Emporium and, coincidentally, near the location of nurseryman Thomas Affleck’s second Texas-based business. Now given the found rose name “Highway 290 Pink Buttons,” it has been speculated that it and ‘Pink Picayune’ are one and the same. A second rose, primarily white with just a blush of pink, is simply identified as ‘Picayune.’ The earliest mention I have found so far is in Modern Roses V (1958). There it is tentatively classed as a Polyantha, “[p]ossibly an old variety from France, still grown in the South,” and is characterized as “light pink, opening white.” Corroboration that white-colored “Picayune” roses were known as far back as the late 1800s was found in an 1894 edition of The Mid-Continent Magazine (formerly The Southern Magazine) that advertised dolls with “faces made of white Picayune roses” (Vol. 3, p. 404). The provenance of the cultivar I grow as ‘Picayune’ can be traced to South Carolina nursery Roses Unlimited. Co-owners Pat Henry and Bill Patterson have had the variety in the RU catalog for over three decades listed as a China. Pat informed me she got the plant from a friend’s garden in Charlotte, NC. An old Combined Rose List shows that it was at one time available from OGR enthusiast Mike Lowe.
 

Book  (1958)  Page(s) 296.  
 
Picayune. Pol. (Possibly an old variety from Francem still grown in the South.) Small, dbl., light pink, opening white; cluster.

Book  (1912)  
 
Laurenciana--Locally known in New Orleans as the Picayune Rose, taking its name from the old Mexican coin, so called, which is about the size of a silver dime. Dwarf bush. Foliage similar to Polyantha Simplex, but in manner of blooming, altogether different. The bright pink, perfectly double little roses are not in panicles, nor in clusters on long stems. They besprinkle the rose-bush from top to bottom, nestling closely to the foliage of tiny leaflets, dark green and very dense. Begins to bloom when a few inches high and continues from early spring till late autumn. Can be pruned into any shape.