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The Florist's Guide and Cultivator's Directory (1831)
By Robert Sweet
[The following text is from the 1827 edition]
The Florist's Guide, and Cultivator's Directory, Volume 2 (1829-1832)
Robert Sweet
DUKE OF WELLINGTON ROSE.
Rosa Wellingtoni.
Stem much branched; branches rather slender, smooth, green, and glossy, bearing numerous strong prickles, that are slightly recurved, with small straight ones intermixed. Leaves generally producing 5 leaflets, or sometimes increased to 7: leaflets ovate, acute, sometimes slightly acuminate, sharply serrate at the edges, of a bright glossy green, and smooth on the upper side, underneath of a pale greyish colour, feather-nerved, and reticulately veined, the midrib armed with short rigid prickles, and the veins hairy, teeth sharp and spreading, tipped with a small brown rigid point: upper one on a long footstalk, the side ones on shorter ones. Petioles long and slender, prickly, and clothed with pedicellated glands, furrowed on the upper side, which is of a reddish purple, rounded underneath. Stipules attached to the base of the petioles, the points distinct, lanceolate, acute, neatly fringed with glands seated on pedicles. Flowers terminating the branch by 3 or 4, more or less, of a rich dark red, changing to a darker hue by age. Peduncles glandular, the terminal one bearing no bractes: side ones generally bearing two a little above the base, sometimes one of them is a small leaf, producing three leaflets. Tube of the Calyx, ovate, smooth and glossy, neither pubescent or glandular, except a very few glands at the very base: segments 5, ovate, keeled, tapering to a slender point, spreading or somewhat reflexed when in bloom, entire or sometimes more or less divided, glandular, and slightly pubescent on the outer side, densely woolly on the inside. Petals numerous, obovate, rounded at the ends, more or less cupped, becoming flatter by expansion : outer ones broadest, and most perfect, becoming gradually narrower and more imperfect inwards.
This beautiful hybrid Rose was raised from the seed of Rosa indica that had been fertilized by the pollen of Rosa damascena; there is scarcely a more splendid Rose grown, and its abundance of flowers all through the Spring and Summer is scarcely to be equalled, by which it takes most after the female parent, that flowers all the year through.
Our drawing was taken from a fine standard plant last Summer at the Nursery of Messrs. Whitley, Brames, and Milne, where it was, with numerous other hybrid varieties, and others of the same sort, growing luxuriantly and covered with flowers for months; the plants had been budded standard high, which caused their great luxuriance; the best stocks to work them on is Rosa tomentosa, as it is a very free strong growing sort; numerous plants of it grow the other side of Putney Heath, on the road to Kingston, by the side of the hedges; and in the hedges, and also in Coombe Wood, where there are numerous other species, with which it might be confused, if particular attention is not paid to its strength.
Rosa Wellingtoni - Duke of Wellington rose
Uploaded 5 AUG 13 |
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