Foliacée

PICTURE SOURCE Les Roses, Volume II (1821)

ORIGINAL BOTANICAL NAME Rosa centifolia foliacea

ORIGINAL FRENCH NAME Rosier à cent feuilles, foliacée

CURRENT BOTANTICAL NAME R. centifolia ‘Foliacée’

COMMON NAME Foliacée

OTHER NAMES Caroline de Berry, Princess Caroline

CLASS Centifolia

ORIGIN Jacques-Louis Descemet; c. 1810 from R. centifolia sport

FLOWERING Once-flowering; summer

SCENT Sweet fragrance

GROWTH Medium-height shrub; 2.5 -5 feet tall (0.75 – 1.5 metres)

AVAILABILITY Still in cultivation

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

At left; picture of the Cabbage Rose , R. centifolia ‘Foliacée’, painted by Pierre-Joseph Redouté, portrait 085 out of 170, Volume II of Les Roses

This rose is one of the Centifolia sports that have survived the passing of time to be grown in the gardens of rose-lovers today. It’s distinctive, long leafy sepals set it apart from the common Cabbage Rose, R. centifolia. Redouté & Thory describe these sepals as being ‘at the expense of the calyx tube, which scarcely exists in this variety.’

They go on to describe the ‘freakish aspect’ that produces leafy sepals as being not uncommon among roses. Although cellular mutations, the mechanics behind how a spontaneous vegetative sport occurs, were not understood back in the early 1800s, there were theories about what caused them. Redouté & Thory suggested that sports happened because of ‘excessive cultivation’, some ‘peculiarity in the soil’ or by ‘other factors influencing growth’. They mention the need to keep grafting the sport as a way of preserving its uniqueness, since many sports, given time, are prone to return to the likeness of their parent.

Centifolia sports are typically difficult to grow on their own roots, and the authors credit the nurseryman, Pelletier, with possessing ‘much skill to convert our Rose into a shrub, attaining a height of one or two feet when growing on its own roots.’ Today if you buy a ‘Foliacée’ specimen, it will most likely be grafted and can reach five feet on strong rootstock.

Redouté & Thory give credit to Monsier Descemet, Professor of Agriculture and Director of the Botanical Garden (as well at the nurseries of the Emperor of Russia, at Odessa) with having brought the Leafy-Rose to cultivation in the early 1800s.

They describe seeing ‘magnificent stocks grafted on R. Canina’ with ‘enormous flowers elegantly crowned with long, leafy sepals’, at the seedbeds he used to maintain at Saint-Denis, near Paris.

Culitivation-wise, Redouté & Thory mention that to get ‘fine, typical flowers’ from this variety, it should be ‘severely pruned’.