In My Vicarage Garden 



heard of it from John Restan, of Cologne, in 

 1600, and had a plant from him, but it had not 

 flowered. He gave it, however, the name of 

 R. versicolor, which it has since retained. Gerard 

 does not mention it at all in 1597, nor is it 

 mentioned by Johnson, the editor of the second 

 edition in 1633, so it is probable it was not much 

 known in England then. But in 1656 Parkinson 

 described it, and his description is so good that 

 I am tempted to quote the greater part of it : 



The flower (being of the same largenesse and doublenesse 

 as the damaske rose) hath the one half of it sometimes of a 

 pale whitish colour, and the other half of a paler damaske 

 colour than the ordinary ; this happeneth so many times, 

 and sometimes also the flower hath divers stripes and 

 markes in it, as one leaf white, or striped with white, and 

 the other half blush or striped with blush, and sometimes 

 all striped or spotted over, and other times little or no 

 stripes or marks at all, as nature liketh to play with varieties 

 in this as in other flowers. 



But if I am puzzled to say when the flower 

 first came into English gardens, it is still more 

 difficult to say when it first got its excellent 

 name of York and Lancaster Rose. Hoffman, 

 in his excellent Lexicon, 1698, after describing 

 the Wars of the Roses, says that on tfte union 

 of the two houses a double red and white rose 

 formed part of the English Royal insignia, but 

 he gives no authority for the statement, and I 

 do not remember to have seen it elsewhere ; but 

 if it was so it would be natural to call the new 

 rose after the existing insignia, and it would be 



