Single Pompon Rose

PICTURE SOURCE Les Roses, Volume II (1821)

ORIGINAL BOTANICAL NAME Rosa Pomponia flore subsimplici

ORIGINAL FRENCH NAME Rosier Pompon à fleurs presque simples

CURRENT BOTANTICAL NAME R. centifolia hybrid

COMMON NAME Single Pompon Rose

CLASS Centifolia

ORIGIN R. centifolia x gallica; raised 1807 by Auvé-Charpentier

FLOWERING Once-flowering; summer

SCENT Unknown

GROWTH Small shrub; 1 ½ feet high (45cm)

AVAILABILITY Still in cultivation?

At left; picture of the Single Pompon Rose , R. centifolia hybrid, painted by Pierre-Joseph Redouté, portrait 084 out of 170, Volume II of Les Roses

For more information, don’t miss the introduction page; ‘Centifolia – The Old-Fashioned Cabbage Rose'

At left, picture of the Cabbage Rose, R. centifolia hybrid variety, known as the ‘Single Pompon Rose’, painted by Redouté, portrait 83 out of 169, Volume II of Les Roses. 

This rose was described by Redouté & Thory as being identical to the Double Pompon Rose, but with a few less thorns and single flowers. They say they grew this rose from 1815 onwards and describe it as a ‘weak shrub, scarcely attaining a height of a foot and a half’, with pink flowers that ‘are almost always of six or seven petals’ with some ‘distinctly pointed’ and possessing hips that are ‘small, elongated, red’ and ‘often abortive’.

They say it is a fertile hybrid between R. centifolia and R. gallica and ‘thus may be considered a separate species’. The author De Candolle classified it as such in the 3^rd edition of his Flore française. Redouté & Thory mention that many authors have placed the Pompons with the Centifolias (as does modern rose classification) but they point out that the Pompons differ in four ways:
1. They have simply dentate leaves (Centifolias usually have double dentate leaves).
2. Their petioles (leaf-stems) are prickly
3. Their flowers are almost always in pairs
4. Their size is miniature compared to R. Centifolia’s height.

For more information see the entry under Double Pompon Rose