^ The Scented Qarden fj£ 



hybrids, for during the first half of the eighteenth 

 century the Dutch nurserymen devoted great attention 

 to raising roses from seed, and they experimented first 

 with the gallic as. Then in the early years of the nine- 

 teenth century the French rose growers, stimulated by 

 the enthusiasm of the Empress Josephine, carried on the 

 work. Dupont, who founded the rose garden of the 

 Luxembourg, collected for her all the best varieties of 

 roses then in existence. Paul, in his Rose Garden, states 

 that Kennedy, who owned the vine nurseries at Hammer- 

 smith, was given a passport during the war to enable him 

 to go to and from Paris to assist the Empress with her 

 garden at Malmaison. One of the most famous French 

 rose growers of this period was Vibert, who saved Desce- 

 mets' collection of ten thousand seedlings by removing 

 them all to his own nursery when the Allied troops entered 

 Paris in 1815. Of the 250 varieties of roses grown by the 

 Empress Josephine, the French Government, with the 

 assistance of M. Jules Gravereaux, seconded by M. 

 Thuilleaux, have now managed to reinstate 197 in the 

 gardens of St. Cloud. 



There are both a Gallica versicolour rose and a Damask 

 versicolour. As Miss Willmott points out, * this has led 

 to a certain amount of confusion, which it is difficult 

 to overcome. Both are occasionally spoken of as Rosa 

 Mundi, and also as the York and Lancaster rose.' Rosa 

 Mundi (R. gallica var. versicolor) has been grown in 

 English gardens for centuries, and just possibly may be 

 connected with the twelfth century Fair Rosamond, 

 whose name the rose immortalizes. The earliest rep- 

 resentation of this rose is to be found in Miss Lawrence's 

 Roses (1799). In her book, in Andrews and Redoute, this 

 118 



