A "BLUE" ROSE.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXII, Issue 2788, 10 May 1911, Page 2

A "BLUE" ROSE.

During the last two years there has been a stir made over a so-called blue rose. The name is Veilchenblau. It was, a writer in " Amateur Gardening " says, introduced by Schmidt in 1908. It is a seedling from Crimson Rambler but it is far from being a blue rose, although it comes as near to that elusive colour as any. When it first opens it is a reddish lilac, changing to amethyst and steel blue. The colour is really a vast improvement upon the dull slateyblues found in many varieties as they fade—such as Madame Norbert Levavasseur and the old Gioire de Duches, for example—but it cannot be said to be really blue. That colour has yet to come in roses. The green rose (Vindi-

flora) is, the same writer goes on to say, a monstrosity among Chinas, sent out by Bambridge and Harrison in 1855. The flowers are rosette in shape, and borne

in large trusses. If not too much exposed to the sun they are the purest green, and when well grown rather a novelty. Too much, sun, and again

late in the season, gives the petals a tinge of Indian red. Really the petals arc transformed into leaf-like organs. It is a very hardy rose. Empereur dv Maroc is the nearest to the black rose. It came from Guinoisseau in 1858.