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"Bishop's Lodge Mary Matthews" rose Reviews & Comments
Discussion id : 172-998
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Initial post 2 days ago by HubertG
I wonder whether this might be the original 'Lady Mary Fitzwilliam'. The foliage, flowers and plentiful hips seem to be a match. Or maybe one of her closer descendants?
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Reply #1 of 4 posted 2 days ago by Lee H.
That’s an exciting proposition. LMF is such an important rose, and deserves a better fate than extinction. If I had access to both, I’d want to cross her with ‘Dr. Grill’, and see if something approximating ‘Antoine Rivoire’ would result. Because science, you know? :-)
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Reply #2 of 4 posted 2 days ago by Patricia Routley
Contributions from members on the average height of “Bishop’s Lodge Mary Mathews” might help.
The original ‘Lady Mary Fitzwilliam’ was low.
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Reply #3 of 4 posted yesterday by Margaret Furness
From memory, the plant at Renmark was less than 1.2m high.
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Reply #4 of 4 posted today by HubertG
Thanks, Margaret. The photo by Ozoldroser of the bush at 'Budgewah', Hay certainly looks wider than it is high.

I'm only going by the photos here, but I'm really struck at how closely the flower form and petals match the photos of LMF and her sports. I can see the same shallowly concave/shell-shaped petals with scrolled edges and central notches at the petal tips, and how the outer ones reflex to form an angular silhouette. Even the buds are somewhat pointed but with scrolled edges. The rounded leaflets and their spacing also seems to be a perfect match to the Jekyll/Mawley photo. A search online will show a couple of bloom photos on facebook which are almost identical matches to that same photo.

After my initial thought that this looks like LMF was one doubting its likeliness to have been growing at Hay at the time of Bishop Anderson (1896-1925) or, if it was there, to have survived. However a search of the local Hay newspaper The Riverine Grazier gives two mentions of 'Lady Mary Fitzwilliam' winning in the cut flower section at the annual Hay Spring Show - one in 1897 and one in 1899, both as specimens in a group of six different varieties and shown by different exhibitors. The 1899 mention is interesting because it immediately goes on to mention the Bishop of Riverina's display of pelargoniums, some of his own breeding. So it seems certain that Bishop Anderson would have seen LMF displayed at the Hay Show. I don't know if he dabbled in breeding roses as well as pelargoniums but if he did it's intriguing to speculate that he might also have grown LMF for its reputation as being a good parent.

Anyway, I think it definitely needs observation so if anyone here grows it more photos would be much appreciated. Of course I could be barking up the wrong tree but I just can't unsee what I've now seen. It would be awesome if LMF didn't go extinct.
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