Around the time when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes had stopped arguing about the colour of woad they would paint for the next battle, Confucius wrote that the Emperor of China had over 500 books on roses. The Chinese in general were not overfond of roses, preferring Chrysanthemums. This did not stop them from cultivating roses, nor from their nurseries selling them. Of interest, the Chinese grew their roses in pots.
In the temperate and sub-tropical areas of China, the Chinese developed a class of roses which ultimately became known as Tea Roses. These were a twiggy bush. The high centered flowers were on thin stems which caused them to droop, and a variety of perfumes. They also had a wide range of flower colours and were repeat flowering. Most had r. gigantea in their breeding.
Tea roses were poor performers in the cold English climate, so lost their popularity very quickly. However, the flower and perfume attributes made them popular with European breeders who crossed them with roses from the Class of Hybrid Perpetuals, producing our modern Hybrid Teas.
China was closed to all foreign visitors during the early 1800s, the only port available being Canton. So the plant hunters of Europe would source plants, including roses, from the Canton Nursery of Fa Tee or fossick through the fodder brought into their barracks for their animals. It would be interesting to know whether the Fa Tee Nurseries labelled their plants in 1808, and if so, what they were called. These would then be shipped to Europe via Calcutta. They would go in pots, or with soil at the roots, sewn up in cloth or hessian or in special glass cases known as Wardian cases.
At Calcutta, the Botanic Gardens, under the care of Dr William Roxburgh from 1813, received them and cared for them until they were considered fit for onward transport. But this did cause some confusion. Since Calcutta was in Bengal, the English called the China roses Bengal Roses and the Tea roses were regarded as descendants of r. indica on the wrongful assumption that they originated in Calcutta, Bengal, India.
Now, the question is, how the Tea roses got their name!!! Was it because, as some claim, that the roses had a tea scent “like the smell of a newly opened tea chest? Or from being associated with the tea being shipped on the fast East India Tea Clippers? (not likely as the Clippers only started doing business in the mid-1800s). Or, was it because many of them came from the Fa Tee Nurseries?
Wal J Nov 2019
