240 



THE BOOK OF THE ROSE 



CHAP. 



doubt been budded from non-flowering shoots. The 

 following year the true form was seen, and it is not now 

 quite so shy a bloomer as it was. In size and lasting 

 qualities it is quite at the top of the tree : as a free 

 bloomer and autumnal, absolutely at the bottom. A 

 secondary or true autumnal bloom is rare : it does 

 bloom as a maiden, otherwise its title to the term 

 Perpetual might yet be in abeyance. In this and other 

 respects it is already better and may still further 

 improve : every year it seems to act a little more like 

 other Roses than it used to do. Another remarkable 

 point about this Rose is its reputed parentage ; for it 

 is said, though it is generally supposed there must have 

 been some mistake or accident, to be a seedling from 

 the old Tea Canary, a yellow flimsy thing according 

 to modern notions, and Mabel Morrison, a white sport 

 from Baroness Rothschild which is particularly open and 

 deficient in the centre. Mr. Bennett was one of the 

 first to practise hybridising in this country, and sent 

 out his new issues as Pedigree Roses : but one would 

 think that on beholding the illustrious progeny of this 

 apparently ill assorted pair he must have been inclined 

 to consider chance still as likely to be successful as the 

 careful choosing of seed-parents. 



Henri Ledechaux (Ledechaux, 1868) and Hippolyte 

 J amain (Lacharme, 1874) are both members of the 

 Countess of Oxford or rather Victor Verdier family, 

 with the same general manners and customs, which 

 it will not be necessary to repeat. Fairly good growth, 

 with smooth characteristic wood, the first shoots losing 

 their foliage early, being very liable to orange fungus or 

 red rust; objecting strongly to light soil or the 

 manetti stock ; free producers in summer and autumn 

 of blooms of good globular pointed shapes, but not very 



