Fortune's Double Yellow

6 years ago

In Prince's select catalog in 18?? (Biodiversity library, search roses) it lists this rose as a noisette perpetual. The catalog is pre 1871, but post 1838 based on dates that I matched with some of the roses in it. There is a catalog printed a year, I can't remember which or what company but from same biodiversity library as above, from 1895 to 1930 that lists Fotune's Double Yellow as a perpetual a bloomer as well.

So if in the 1800s and early 1900s it wasn't a once bloomer, what do we have now? Could the rose we have now be from a seedling that was passed along? Has anyone looked into what happened with the perpetual bloomer from the past? Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill?

Thanks in advance

Brandon

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AquaEyes 7a NJ

6 years ago

last modified: 6 years ago

I, too, see old references that leave me scratching my head. Some listed 'Erinnerung an Brod' within the Hybrid Perpetuals, and described it as repeat-blooming. Personally, I think that many of these authors were writing about roses they hadn't grown, or seen in-person. Instead, they looked to what others wrote, and made assumptions. EaB had a (Damask or Hybrid) Perpetual as one parent, so it was assumed to be one as well....and since they repeat-bloomed, shouldn't this?

Perhaps because 'Fortune's Double Yellow' was considered to be a type of China/Tea/Noisette (depending on the reference), some authors then described it as being repeat-blooming. Once one author made that error, it'd get repeated by others who were also writing about roses they didn't grow themselves, or at least see in-person. After a while, you can start to spot the differences.

Also, remember that just because an author wrote 100 years ago doesn't make him/her less prone to error than those today. I see it on HMF frequently when old references don't agree, and it causes a controversy -- did a different rose appear under the same name during the time between references? Why else would two rose authors disagree? Well, I can find disagreement in current books about modern roses all the time, yet we take those with a grain of salt. But strangely, the longer an author is dead, the more his/her works tend to be viewed as gospel. Remember, also, that later editions may have corrected these errors, but we also tend to more highly-revere original editions, and so miss out on those.

:-)

~Christopher

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Comments (13)

Embothrium
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
The currently familiar, early- and abundantly flowering, very prickly, hot climate adapted Tea hybrid is supposed to be the same as that introduced from China by Robert Fortune in 1845. What you are saying here suggests another, perhaps more generally useful plant eventually came to be put on the market under the same name. At least for a time.
Brandon Garner St. Louis area z6 thanked Embothrium
jerijen
6 years ago
I suspect Embothrium has this right.
Brandon Garner St. Louis area z6 thanked jerijen
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It has a light, sweet fragrance, not strong. It is a hybrid gigantica/china/old old rose. Was "discovered" in China in early 19th century. It has a long history here in Marin County, CA - evidently it arrived here from England in the mid 19th century. The old GIANT one was a seedling 30 years ago from a very old one found on the grounds of an old (for CA) estate. I talked to the man who planted it 30 years ago - he is still the entire Department of Public Works of the little Town of Ross, CA where it is growing. Jackie
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A week ago this rose had only 3 open blooms. Then when I looked at it today, voila! Jackie
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We had some very good news today regarding the parent plant from which I took the cutting for my rose several years ago. I posted pics on here then - it was enormous, and growing over the tops of 3-4 large trees in a park in a nearby town. The little park is alongside a creek, which in the 60s the Corps of Engineers turned into a cement drainage channel to prevent floods, which happened a lot then. Fast forward - there was a terrible, horrible flood in that little town (Ross, CA) on New Year's evening in, I think, 2000. Literally "the whole town is under water". There were pics of the cute little downtown, with a rushing torrent running through it which came up about 6-7 feet high on all of the buildings on the main street. Anyway, the town voted to tax itself to do something about the flooding, and 20 years later, $$$$ had been spent on consultants, etc., but NOTHING had actually happened physically about changing anything. The plan, unfortunately, involved clear cutting the entire little park where FDY is, including all of the mature trees, so they could bulldoze it, and lower the level, and get rid of the cement channel, and make the creek more natural, with a "flood plain" where the park was, to absorb and spread out any flood water. I talked with the town head of DPW about 5 years ago (he was the person who actually had planted the rose decades ago, after taking a cutting from an ancient one growing on the property of a large old estate nearby), and he said all of trees, including the old huge rose, would go. Fast forward, and I started reading in our local paper that the townspeople were pushing back hard on the idea of clear cutting the park. Good news - today when my DH and I were on a bike ride alongside the still cement drainage channel, we were looking at signs which had been posted on the fence, describing the project, which was evidently actually starting soon, after 20+ years. A nice young women approached us, and asked us if we had any questions. She said that she was the "project manager". She showed us on the pictures where the bulldozing would be happening, and which trees would be taken out, and which would remain. Yay! They had changed the plan so that 2/3rds of the little park would be left as it is, including all of the trees the rose was growing on, and of course the rose. I was jumping up and down with happiness. The rose is currently in full bloom (pic below, which I took this morning, is about one quarter of the entire thing), so I recommended that she go and look at it, and she said she would. Sometimes bureaucrats and their consultants need to be yelled at by the residents... Jackie
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I would, of course, except that our 1/3rd acre (which of course includes the house) lot has already got a FDY and a BP growing on it. We can no longer grow roses up our house (Fire Dept), which was a perfect South facing 40 ft tall 60 ft wide trellis for large climbers. We now have very limited even partly sunny spots which could accommodate a huge climber, as we are trying to keep our existing trees, and the FD does not like what they call "cultivated bio mass" (!grrr) growing up trees. Since I already am trying to get FDY to grow up our severely pruned privet tree, I don't want to risk it with other trees I love, like our huge Scarlet Oak. So, I even gave up growing Yellow Lady Banks, which I loved. I think I will just have to admire Pink Phoenix from afar. Meanwhile, I am trying to find homes for some of our extra roses (mostly created by me as my scheme for rooting cuttings is now producing 100% success) with some of our younger relatives. One of our great nephews just moved into a house with a fenced back yard with lots of sun with nothing in it. He has agreed to accept a Reve d'Or and a Pax to grow on his fence. However, he any some of my other younger relatives have reacted with astonishment that anyone would grow a once blooming rose for any reason - otherwise I would get a Pink Phoenix for them. Trying to introduce them to old roses gradually.... Jackie
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Brandon Garner St. Louis area z6
Original Author
6 years ago
In the description of the rose in the catalog it is similar to the color of what we have now. Also it was listed as a separate rose from Gold of ophir.

Also, just a thought if Fotune's had brought back a once blooming rose from China that color, would it still been offered in the catalogs 80 years later? Reading through them leads me to say not likely
jerijen
6 years ago
Well, but Fortune did bring back once-bloomers. 'Fortuniana' comes to mind.

And the color of Fortune's Double Yellow was so extraordinary for its time that I can see why it became popular.

In Northern California, I have seen huge old plants that have survived for more than a century, quite on their own. One climbed two stories up a big old pine tree, and cascaded down in a traffic-stopping display -- in a fading old mining town.

Beside that, Dr. Guoliang Wang recognized 'Fortune's Double Yellow' from China.

You know, Fortune wasn't trekking through the wilderness looking for these things. They were garden roses, some from the Fa Tee Nursery.
Brandon Garner St. Louis area z6 thanked jerijen
Brandon Garner St. Louis area z6
Original Author
6 years ago
I am aware that Fortune brought back once bloomer. Also I am aware that he wasn't collecting from strictly the wild. He admits that the rose came from a yard. However 'Fortuniana' wasn't in the 1900-something catalog that Fortune's Double Yellow was in.

The point about the color and the popularity makes sense to me.

Just a thought, hopefully without sounding disrespectful, what if the recognition of FDY today, it being from China by Dr Wang, is something akin to the "native" Cherokee rose in the South. What if the FDY today was introduced into China and naturalized there?

Again, I may be making more to this than what is there.

I am aware that the same name has been applied to different roses.

I just find it odd that an "expert" (Prince) would call it a perpetual bloomer if it wasn't, and he was a lot closer to the introduction of it than we are now.
barbarag_happy
6 years ago
I grew Fortune's Double Yellow in Texas; my plant was a once-bloomer I grew up against a panel fence. It covered 2 sections the first season, so vigorous! It is a glorious rose.

So glad I grew it then, prolly too tender for SE Virginia.
Brandon Garner St. Louis area z6 thanked barbarag_happy
User
6 years ago
Whatever 'Fortune's Double Yellow' (of commerce) actually is, its probably worth noting that any rose that produced even one or two flowers in September was described as "repeat blooming", even though that was an exaggeration of considerable proportion. So desperate were aficionados to have roses that flowered beyond June that nurserymen would hastily toss them into the "remontant" category, just to fuel sales. Since 'FDY' is so unique and seems to be well-documented (relatively), I am of the opinion that what we grow today is probably the same rose Fortune described.
Brandon Garner St. Louis area z6 thanked User
jacqueline9CA
6 years ago
What Christopher and Paul said. Old nursery catalogs from commercial nurseries are frequently wrong in descriptions, just like modern ones are. (Beale's nursery website is still calling Sombreuil (with a picture of Colonial White, so I know it is that one) a "climbing tea"!.

Was not the Prince nursery in Flushing, NY? Unless they were growing FDY under glass, it seems unlikely it would do very well there. Perhaps they had a rose which had gotten confused in commerce, and was more cold hardy.

FDY that we know as such grows all over the county I live in (Marin County, CA). I spoke with the Park supervisor in Ross the other day, and he said he found a very old one on what had been the grounds of a late 19th century mansion - the Park supervisor rooted cuttings and planted it in several places in Ross. It is also called the "San Rafael Rose" (the town I live in) because it was found here also in the 19th century,

Jackie
Brandon Garner St. Louis area z6 thanked jacqueline9CA
jerijen
6 years ago
It's said that, in the 19th Century, FDY was the rose-of-choice in Whittier, CA, for covering outhouses. That always makes me giggle.
Brandon Garner St. Louis area z6 thanked jerijen
User
6 years ago
@Jeri:

So, are we to surmise that under many a massive mound of 'Fortune's Double Yellow' we might find ancient outhouses if we were to excavate??! Extraordinary.
jerijen
6 years ago
Alas! Those lovely mounds are likely all -- "history".
Brandon Garner St. Louis area z6
Original Author
6 years ago
Thank you everyone for your comments. Like I said I may be making more out of it than what is there. I have a lot of time to look through old catalogs and to come up with questions to ask and learn

Fortune's Double Yellow

AquaEyes 7a NJ

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Fortune's Double Yellow

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