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The American Rose Annual, (1989) 115-118
Myrrh-Scented Roses
Dr. Robert E. Basye
In 1950, I imported Rosa x macrantha from Hillier and Sons in England. This hybrid rose was found near La Fleche, France in 1823, and later found its way into English and European gardens. It is commonly agreed that it shows the strong impress of R. gallica and, to a lesser extent, perhaps the influence of one of the Caninae roses. It is said to be a tetraploid, and this I have verified. Its tetraploidy, however, (barring an irregular meiosis) rules out the possibility that it could be a direct cross between R. gallica and one of the many Caninae roses. This follows from the fact that both male and female gametes of gallica carry 14 chromosomes, and the strange and fascinating fact that, in all the dog roses, male gametes carry only seven chromosomes while female gametes carry 21, 28 or 35 chromosomes depending on the species. The true parentage of this rose may be forever shrouded in mystery.
I also found that, though quite self-sterile, it is widely receptive to foreign pollens. Admiring its rugged health, I began making many crosses, always using macrantha as the seed parent. I was looking mainly for blackspot resistance but did not entirely neglect the flowers. I would walk down the rows in the morning, savouring the freshly-opened blooms, but I was rarely inspired enough to record a note on the fragrance.
One day, however, I came to a young seedling of macrantha x Dickson's Red. Some of you may recall that Dickson's Red, known also as Dr. F.G. Chandler, was chosen as the first AARS rose back in 1940. The perfume of this cross was strong but quite unlike that of any rose I had ever smelled. I thought to myself, here is a rose that does not smell like a rose. In the days that followed I encountered two other crosses, macrantha x Cl. Crimson Glory and macrantha x J.B. Clark, which had the same baffling aroma. I was puzzled and somewhat disappointed. Roses just weren't supposed to smell like that. I even considered consigning all three of them to the bonfire. In the months that followed, however, I finally compromised by saving only macrantha x Dickson's Red because it had the best bush of the three.
In 1962 I made some further crosses, with R. macrantha x Dickson's Red as seed parent. One of these crosses had the parentage (R. macrantha x Dickson's Red) x Prima Ballerina and bears the number 64-457. Prima Ballerina comes from Mathias Tantau and is perhaps his most fragrant rose. But now the exquisite perfumes of the two hybrid teas are completely blotted out and superseded by that strange odour so rare among roses. How should it be described, and why is it so rare?
A visitor one spring day, upon smelling 64-457, shed a gleam of light when she exclaimed, "Oh, this reminds me of anise—and also of licorice!"
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