'L'Hyménée' rose reviews and comments

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'L'Hyménée' rose Reviews & Comments

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Discussion id : 150-814 most recent 14 SEP 23 HIDE POSTS

Initial post 13 SEP 23 by odinthor

If you please, it is perhaps incautious to attribute this rose to the Potager du Roi, which I take it derives solely from Hardy's annotation "Vers." ("Versailles") in his catalog of 1837. As Vincent Derkenne points out on p. 69 of his publication of Hardy's catalog with annotations and comments, after listing no fewer than seven different things which such indications could mean, "The reader is thus called upon to keep a distance from these mentions." Yes, such a mention could indicate the breeder or introducer, but also could be a reference to the author who published the description, or to the name of a gardener in whose collection or garden where Hardy observed the rose growing under the indicated name, or to the name of a town or region where the rose was found, or to the name of the rose-grower who provided the rose to Hardy, or the name of a published work in which Hardy found reference to the rose. In Boitard's manual of 1836, Boitard attributes Hardy; and Boitard was most definitely part of the "in the know" crowd of horticulturists and rose-lovers of the time, and had been so for a number of years. I consequently believe that Hardy should be maintained as the originator of this rose. The above remarks should of course also be applied to all other attributions deriving from Hardy's notes in his 1837 catalog.

Reply #1 of 2 posted 14 SEP 23 by HMF supporting member

jedmar

Wouldn't Hardy himself had indicated that 'Hyménée' is his own cultivar? He uses Hardy, h.dy. etc to indicate his roses. He states Versailles, which I agree that he might have seen or received it from there. He also says it is synonymous with 'Delaunay' by Laffay. It could be argued that there was a common origin, but not Hardy.

Regarding Boitard, he actually plagiarized most of his Manuel of 1836 from Prévost's Catalogue descriptif of 1829. Comparing the texts, one can see that the descriptions are identical, with only a limited amount of reordering the sentence. Difficult to understand that this passed off easily at the time. Was Prevost's work not in circulation?

Boitard is unreliable as he attributes may roses to Prévost, which was then picked up by many later authors as Prévost being the breeder. Boitard possibly meant the source was Prevost (to formulate it kindly). Prevost indicated his own cultivars with "bred at Boisguillaume", his nursery. Most of Boitard's Prevost roses do not have this origin.

Reply #2 of 2 posted 14 SEP 23 by odinthor

This catalog of Hardy's was not something intended for publication, hence the fact that it sat waiting for M. Derkenne to undertake that task a century and a half later. It appears to have basically been Hardy's own notes to himself gathering together stray information for his own purposes as to where he had received the roses from, and/or where he or others could find them "now," where a worthwhile reference was to be found, and so on. As to Boitard, the question of plagiarism is not actually germane. These works listing roses were not works of literature understood as deriving from one's original intellectual/creative spirit; these were recordings of what plants looked like for the information of readers who wanted such data. How many rose books old or new simply repeat what their predecessors have written, the predecessors having themselves simply copied perhaps the introducers' remarks in the introducer's own catalog? (Answer: Lots!) And this is why it "easily passed"--because no one cared. As to attributions and Boitard: As you mention, Boitard would simply give what was to him the earliest source for the rose, which is actually sufficiently responsible and something still done today as a "place-holder" pending finding further information, the attitude being in effect, "This is the best information I can offer; if you have better info, cough it up." No one coughed it up for 'Hyménée', despite the rose being in commerce for several decades. We should defer to the opinion of M. Derkenne, who has actually focused his attention on this question of Hardy's catalog for many years. The caution he advises is well-considered, well-informed, and wise.

____

It's worth noting that Boitard seems to have known Hardy quite well:

--"Mr. Hardy has had for three years a rose which he grafted on a plum tree [prunier], and which bloomed in 1828." (Manuel de Physiologie Végétale, ed. by Boitard, 1829, p. 355)

--In Boitard's Manuel Complet, he knows Hardy well enough, and for long enough, to have been able to state: "A species is always given by Nature the faculty of being able to reproduce itself from seed, and rosa sulphurea doesn't produce any. At least, I have seen no more than five gathered by Mr. Hardy after several years of research; this able grower of roses sowed them, and I can't say if he had any results." (Manuel Complet, p. 111).

--"In this I am of the opinion of the best growers in the capital, such as Messsrs. Noisette, Cels, Hardy, etc. In their vast cultures, these gentlemen annually sow seeds of shrubs much more delicate than Mulberry trees [muriers], as for example roses [...]." (Traité de la culture du Murier, by Boitard, 1828, p. 35)

--At the minutes of a meeting of la Société d'Agronomie Pratique, February 18, 1829, we see present together not only Boitard and Hardy but also such worthies as De Bugny, the Comte de Coutard, Debrun des Beaumes, Grandidier, Fion, Cels, Blondel, Foy, Leboyer, Pirolle, Colin, Grandidier, De la Neuville, Pichonnière, Sarlandière, Jacques, Jacquin, Becquey, Tassard, Noisette, Desfontaines, Lenoir, and evidently [Sisley-] Vandael (who lattermost, present or not, they voted thanks to). (Journal de la Société d'Agronomie, 1829, pp. 146-147)