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The Rose is a flower of the northern hemisphere, none ever having crossed the equator without the assistance of a gardener. But there are a few countries without a Wild Rose or two to call their own, growing usually on the edge of woodland or pastures, somewhat like blackberries where they make use of their thorns to scramble up over other plants to catch the sun, the number is somewhere around the 150 to 200 mark and a more precise figure is not possible due to the inherent variability of most rose species and there habit of interbreeding promiscuously both in gardens and in the wild.
Indeed, Linnaeus, the father of modern botany and a man who decreed back in the mid eighteenth century that science should call the rose by its roman name Rosa rather than the Greek Rhodon complained that "the determination of species of rose is unusually difficult, and he who has seen only a few has less trouble than those who have examined many". It is still difficult for the gardener, who, used to the idea that every bush of say "Queen Elizabeth" will be recognizably the same, can find it confusing that two apparently quite different roses might belong to the same species. That a wild rose may not be a true species at all but a natural hybrid, as Rosa Alba seems to be or even an ancient garden rose that has gone wild as is apparently the case with R. foetida only muddies the water further.
A revision of the genus is sorely needed to sort matters out . It is astonishing that the most recent revision with any real claim to being comprehensive was completed as long ago as 1820. Do not be to hard on the botanists, for it is a daunting task. It will be necessary to re-examine the wild roses of the world in the wild for many scientific names have been founded on cultivated plants of doubtful origin - and there is the difficulty that the heartland of the rose is central Asia, encompassing such countries as Afghanistan, Iran, the far western provinces of China and the southern republics of the old soviet union, countries where politics have not hitherto made life very easy for visiting botanists.
In the meantime botanists class the wild rose in several sections, the most commonly recognized arrangement being that devised by the American Botanist Alfred Rehder in 1949 who proposed ten. The most important are: the Pimpinellifoliae, encompassing the Burnett Rose, (R.pimpinellifolia) and most of the yellow flowered wild roses such as R. xanthia, R. ecae, and R. fotida the Gallicane, whose chief representative is R. gallica father of the Gallicas, Damasks, and Centifolias of gardens, the Chinenses, a small group of confused botany but nevertheless of supreme horticultural importance, as it is from R. Chinesis and R. gigantea that practically all our repeat flowering modern garden roses decend, The Cinnamomae,taking its name from the horticullturally unimportant R. majalis, (R. cinnamomea) but including such noteworthy species as R. rugosa and R. moyessii, the Synstylae, which includes all the Himalayan Musk Roses and R. multiflora and R. wichuraiana, and the Carolinae, all of who members are American.
To try to fit the garden roses into the system, as some recent books have done is simply fatuous, as they almost always have ancestry from several sections. and in any case even with the wild roses, surely the gardener is more interested in their beauty than their botanical minutiae?
I certainly am. In selecting among the wild roses for inclusion in this book, my sole criterion has been their beauty and garden worthiness, and the only classification I have imposed upon them is to note whether they behave as shrubs or climbers in the garden. The botanist might dispute that some, such as the yellow Banksias rose are not truly wild roses, but all are worth growing and can be found in the catalogues of the many nurseries that specialize in them.
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About the Author:
Stirling Macoboy has produced many magnificent volumes devoted to the world of flowers, this excerpt is from his book "Macoboy's Roses"
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