Newsletter  (Sep 2019)  
 
[From "Tales and Trails of the Centifolias", by Jeff Wyckoff, pp. 4-9]
....The most intriguing piece of recent research, one that seems to have attracted little notice, comes from Bruneau et al. (2007), “Phylogenetic Relationships in the Genus Rosa: New Evidence from Chloroplast DNA Sequences and an Appraisal of Current Knowledge,” published in the journal “Systematic Botany.” They conclude: “Assuming maternal chloroplast inheritance in Rosaceae . . . our phylogeny would suggest that the maternal parent of R.centifolia var. muscosa, a complex hybrid believed to have been formed by the crossing of multiple species… is Rosa gallica. The chloroplast genome of Rosa gallica and Rosa centifolia for the markers examined is identical”.

Article (newsletter)  (Feb 2016)  
 
.....where did they originate? Because some Rosas x centifolia were imported from Flanders and Holland into France and England in the 16th through 18th centuries, most rosarians and plantsmen have assumed the rose originated in the Low Countries. But that is a mere assumption. Not a species but a genetic mix, (hence the X in R. x centifolia), their ancestry appears to go back many, many centuries.
Since Roman times, say around 200 A.D., when Rome traded with Constantinople and Alexandria, that empire also frequented trade routes from Italian ports to the Low Countries. And Constantinople was connected to ancient land trade routes from China through Scythia (roughly Ukraine and southwest Russia today) and Bactria (roughly Afghanistan and parts of Iran). During the early Middle Ages, trade routes of the ninth and tenth centuries into Europe also led to Bruges (in today’s Belgium but then a part of Holland), which was one of the great trade cities known for its huge commercial fairs, as was Ypres, which rose to the height of its market prosperity in the 13th century. Antwerpen, too, was a main port city of the Spanish Netherlands in the 14th century, especially for Portuguese trade with its connections to the Far East. In sum, R. x centifolia in any of its stages of development to the cultivar it is today could have been borne along the Silk Road or by sea or both until it reached the Low Countries where it was further refined.
All that may seem to be conjecture, but we do have some very early evidence that points to the existence of the centifolia outside the Netherlands. The Zoroastrian scriptures of Persia, the Pahlavi Bundahishn, which date back as far as the ninth century, mention a “hundred-petalled rose.” Assuming that rose still exists, the reference could allude to the yellow R. hemesphaerica, since no color is given, but it just might refer to an early variety of centifolia. By 1307 Petrus de Crescentius, an Italian writer on horticultural and agricultural topics, mentioned a hundredpetalled rose growing in Batavia (the old name for Holland). Given the Silk Trade Route through Persia and Turkey and onward to Salerno in southern Italy, then north to the Low Countries, the centifolia rose may indeed have reached the Dutch by the very early 14th century.....
After that, we have no mention of the centifolia for over 200 years. In 1515-16, Abunasri Heravi of Persia writes of sixteen kinds of roses in his Ersad al-zera’a, among them the “yellow hundred-petalled rose” (no doubt R. hemisphaerica) and the “hundred-petalled red rose,” apparently R. x centifolia. ....
The next known reference to what we call the centifolia was made by Matthias de l’Obel, one of a trio of renowned Flemish botanists. In his Plantarum of 1576, he included among his 1,486 engravings one of the rose in question, which he thought was a damask. His description of it in his Kruydtboeck (Herbal Book) of 1581 is that of a centifolia. Obviously impressed by the rose, he adds that a gardener, N. Sanders in Antwerpen, gave him the rose, also remarking that others grew it—a woman near the town of Gorcum, and a Secretary Willem Martiny. Two years later the great botanist Clusius, another of the famous trio, mentions the cabbage rose in his 1583 edition of Horti Germaniae, and again in more detail in his 1601 edition. There he reports having received two Rosas centifolia batavica from a John Hoghelande, one which bloomed in 1591 with 120 petals, “approaching white somewhat.” He also reports that such a rose grows in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Website/Catalog  (12 Feb 2010)  Includes photo(s).
 
Rosa centifolia L.
A Centifolia rose.  Gore describes the flowers of the ‘Common Cabbage’ as drooping, large, of a beautiful pink, fragrant and full.  Paul describes its flowers as rose-coloured, large and globular in form, on a vigorous bush of branching habit.  [Paul (1848, 1863, 1888, 1903), Rivers (1854, 1857, 1863), Amat].

Horticultural & Botanical History
An old garden rose, certainly pre-19th century.  Rosa centifolia is beautifully illustrated in Willmot, rose no. 115.  Saint-Hilaire Tr. pl.143/1825.

History at Camden Park
Included in a handwritten list of roses dated 1861, probably intended for a new edition of the catalogue that was never printed.  [MP A2943].

Article (magazine)  (2009)  Page(s) 31.  
 
'Old Cabbage' Source RJBM [Réal Jardin Botanico Madrid] Chromosome Number 21
R. x centifolia (= 'Cabbage Rose')  Source RJBM [Réal Jardin Botanico Madrid] Chromosome Number 28

Website/Catalog  (2009)  
 
Rosa centifolia Linn.
Habitat : Cultivated chiefly in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Ayurvedic : Shatapatri, Shatapatrikaa (Shatapatra is equated with Nelumbo nucifera.), Taruni, Devataruni, Karnikaa, Chaarukesharaa, Laakshaa, Gandhaaddhyaa. (Flowers—usually pink and double.)
Unani : Gul-e-Surkh. [in other sources: = Rosa damascena]
Siddha/Tamil : Iroja, Rajapoo.

Action : Flowers—a decoction is prescribed for inflammation of the mouth and pharynx, and ulcers of the intestine. Powder of rose buttons and seeds—astringent in haemorrhage and diarrhoea. The flowers and leaves contain 1.3 and 8.5% of saponin respectively. Petels are reported to contain methionine sulphoxide.

Cabbage rose yields a volatile oil (0.2%) consisting mainly of citronellol, geraniol, nerol, phenylethanol, linalool and citral. It contains 15% tannins (oligomeric proanthocyanidins).

Article (misc)  (2007)  Page(s) 15, 20-21.  Includes photo(s).
 
p. 15: No species of rose was more important economically or culturally more significant in Iran than the "hundred-petalled rose" (gul-i şad barg) or Rosa centifolia. Characterized by its densely packed petals, it was highly valued for the sweetness of its scent. The thirteenth-century agricultural and horticultural manual, Āsār va aḥyā' [by Rashid al-din Fadl-allāh Hamadānī (1247?-1318)], mentions varieties with one hundred and even two hundred petals, and the Irshad al-zirā‘a refers to both yellow and red varieties, such as the "fiery centifolia of Mashhad" (ātish ĩ mashhadĩ) Commonly referred to in the West as the Cabbage rose, it was introduced into Europe via the Netherlands in the sixteenth or early seventeenth century, either directly from Iran during the reign of Shah 'Abbas I, a period of vigorous trade Relations and cultural Exchange between the Safavid state and Holland, or else through the Ottoman empire during the time of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, whose court evinced an unprecedented interest in the culture of flowers, and in roses and rose oil in particular.

p. 20-21: The use of flowers and floral symbolism figured prominently in ancient Iranian religions, which developed an Elaborate "language of flowers"...In Zoroastrian religion, and especially in Mazdaism, a different flower or herb was associated with each of the deities called yazatas, who presided over the days of the month and who were honored in special liturgical ceremonies. ....the rose was associated...with Daena, one of the female yazatas, who was the deity of Religion. Moreover, her species of rose was even specified in the Pahlavi texts as the gul-e sad varg (New Per. gul-i şad barg), the "hundred-petalled rose," that is, Rosa centifolia, which as already indicated was renowned for its sweet fragrance.
The Daena represented a central concept in Zoroastrian theology, daēnā (Middle Pers. dēn denoting religion not in the traditional sense but, rather, man's spiritual self, his inner vision, and moral conscience. In view of the importance of the sophianic principle in Zoroastrianism, daēnā also referred to innate humen wisdom as an emanation of divine wisdom, a quality always associated in Persian thought with the feminine. Henry Corbin discerned in the figure of the Daena the female archetype of wisdom and intuitive vision who represents the secret presence of the Eternal feminine in man, and who, necessarily construed as an angelophany, is the "Angel of his incarnate soul," his heavenly guide and celestial Counterpart (see Fig. 1). [Angel Holding a hundred-petalled rose, Rosa centifolia, Iran, 1575-1600. Courtesy of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Art and History Collection, LTS1995.2.72.]
...Daena's appearance was heralded by her beautiful scent, which could be discerned from afar by the soul of the righteous as she wafted toward him like a perfumed breeze. This scent, which stemmed from her association with the centifolia rose, was interpreted as the scent of the soul itself, a notion supported by her reply when asked about her identity: "I am none other than you yourself...your own daēnā, who has been made beautiful by your own nature."

Article (magazine)  (2006)  
 
.....R. x centifolia trichomes resemble those of R. x damascena ‘bifera’. One difference is that they seem to have redder head-cells (Fig.): they are highly branched (Fig.) and may be very long (Fig.).
.....R. x centifolia and R. x damascena cultivars are both in the section Gallicanae and genetically related.....Thus, these cultivars could have preserved some traits of their common ancestor, R. gallica. Indeed, these species have the same kind of glandular trichomes on leaves and sepals and nearly the same VOCs in sepals.

Book  (2006)  Page(s) 42, 77, 123-125.  
 
p. 42: Zhaolin et al. (1988) used gas-chromatography and mass spectrometry for analysis of the essential oil and the fragrant volatile oil compound from the Rosa centifolia flowers. 26 compounds were identified from the fragrant volatiles and 35 compounds from the essential oil. Major constituents of the fragrant volatile oil include Phenyl ethanol, Citronellol, Geraniol and Citronellyl acetate.

p. 77: Graph: Flower production...under Faisalabad climatic conditions. Rosa centifolia. [12 to >60 blooms per month January-December with a peak in May with >60 blooms]

p. 123-125: In the Rosa centifolia species an increase in the number of flowers per plant was observed with the increasing temperature, which seems a unique character in roses. The flower production of Rosa centifolia was maximum in the hottest months of the year, i.e. May, June and July...The species, Rosa centifolia performed excellently under Faisalabad climatic conditions and produced fabulous flowering throughout the year. From the results it was recorded that a single plant of rosa centifolia produced about 500 fragrant flowers/year....
...the initiation of leaves followed by an inflorescence is repeated cyclically in Rosa centifolia.....lw concentrations of GAs permit floral induction in Rosa centifolia throughout the growing season.

Article (magazine)  (2005)  Page(s) 973.  
 
Recovery of concrete oil from petals of Rosa demascena was higher (0.24%) than Rosa centifolia (0.22%) on fresh weight basis. Similarly absolute oil recovered from concrete oil of Rosa demascena was higher (10.17%) and 0.03% on the petal weight basis than Rosa centifolia (9.83% and 0.02%, respectively).

Some chemical constituents of essential oil of Rosa centifolia and Rosa damascena
Rosa centifolia (%age Constituents)
Geraniol 2.98
Eugenol 3.99
Rhodinol 4.05
Citronellol 12.09
Linalool 1.68
Citranellyl acetate 4.09
Phenyl ethyl alcohol 56.68
Rhodinyl acetate 1.94

Rosa damascene (%age Constituents)
Geraniol 1.53
Eugenol 1.68
Rhodinol 2.69
Citronellol 3.72
Linalool 1.02
Citranellyl acetate 2.46
Phenyl ethyl alcohol 70.86
Rhodinyl acetate 0.42

Book  (2002)  Page(s) 28.  
 
Before 1867. Rated 8.2