(1889)  Page(s) 8.  
 
The white rose of Kazanlik, Crépin's Rosa alba typica, which I want to discern with the name Rosa alba, forma suaveolens, in the manner as one honours especially sugar-rich beets or fine-wooly sheep with a special name, has varying filling and the usually pure white blooms have sometimes a pink shading. This white rose gives a fine oil, but only in scarce quantities, at best one Miskal from 14 Oka, while the other and most important red Kazanlik rose produces in good weather one Miskal = 4,81 g from 10-12 Oka [1 Oka = 1.283 kg],

(1889)  Page(s) 14-15.  Includes photo(s).
 
...an oil rose from Rumeli [Turkish name for south east Balkans] which I introduced as Rosa byzantina...It discerns itself through extraordinary floriferousness, vigorous growth and astonishingly easy propagation. This rose is known in Kazanlik, but not yet used in large scale for production of oil. My Bulgarian friend at first glance identified it as "Rose de Constantinople", and exactly from Constantinople [Istanbul] has this rose arrived many years ago at a manor house of the area. The fragrance of this rose is strong, but it seems to me that it is not as pleasing as that of our Centifolia, so that the oil produced from it might be lesser than that of the oils manufactured from the centifolias and Kazanlik-Gallicas.
This very extraordinary Rosa byzantina has such a great resemblance in habit with the French rose de la Grifferaie, which is now generally regarded as a hybrid of the japanese Rosa multiflora with one of the double Gallicas, that she almost calls out to an attempt to include her into the highly interesting group of Synstylae. Crépin, whom I sent herbarium material, was also the opinion that she could be a hybrid of R. multiflora with a double Gallica, but on reflecting more, this probability seems excluded. This rose was already brought in the 20s of this century from Constantinople into the area, at a time when Rosa multiflora was scarcely introduced in Europe, but surely not yet in Turkey. There remain therefore only two Anatolian synystlae, i.e. Rosa phoenicea and Rosa moschata, which could have created this interesting oil rose with a double red damask.
I have listed this as gallica x phoenicia in the the last index of my nursery, but I am far from saying the final word on this...The picture in natural size shows a lot of similarity with foliage of R. phoenicea, which generally has 5 leaflets, while the foliage of R. byzantina has mostly 7 leaflets, like Rosa moschata. The form of the multifloral inflorescence reminds with its flatter, umbel or semi-globular shape also rather R. phoenicea. The colour of the blooms is a vivid pink and the size corressponds to that of damask roses. What tends most to bring this rose in relation to R. phoenicea, is aside from the strongly curved prickles which are totally identical to that of R. phoenicea, an external aspect which is clearly evident. I have several hundred plants of both forms, which all show on the underside of the foliage of the stronger shoots a vivid purple-violet shading which I have not seen in the same intensity with any other rose.

(1889)  Page(s) 8 - 9.  
 
The red damask rose [of Kazanlik] I name Rosa gallica var. damascena, f. trigintipetala following from "trindafil", i.e. the thirty-leaved, the name generally used in the Orient and taken from ancient Greek, a name which is quite appropriate, as the number of petals is seldom more than thirty. This red Rose, as a real Gallicanea, remains at little over a meter height...the red rose sometimes also has pink or whitish blooms. With the closeness of the two main forms [of roses in Kazanlik, i.e. with R. alba suaveolens], a mixing was inevitable and the presence of intermediate forms is more than natural.