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Excerpt from American Agriculturalist, Volume 38, 1879.
A New Variegated Tea Rose—"American Banner"
The
most striking novelty that we have met with in our long
experience with plants, is represented in the engraving.
For the first time, so far as we can ascertain, we have
obtained a Tea Rose distinctly striped with crimson and
white, and at the same time retaining all the valuable
qualities of its class—delicacy of color and texture,
exquisite fragrance, and continuous bloom.
We have long had striped varieties of the hardy garden
roses, such as "York and Lancaster," etc., but
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Variegated
Tea Rose—"American Banner" |
flower only once, and having
but little merit are not generally known. This new variety originated
in 1877 with George Cartwright, Esq., of Dedham, Mass., who
states that this appeared as a "sport" upon the well
known crimson Tea Rose—-
"Bon Silene." The leaf, from the axil of which the
sporting shoot started, showed in one-half the leathery foliage
of the "sport" while the other half had the foliage
peculiar to "Bon Silene." We have frequently, in other
plants, similar variations in the color of flowers; for example,
it is quite common to find one shoot of Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis
bearing orange colored, and other having crimson flowers, but
the foliage in such cases remains unchanged.
Again, we have Carnations bearing at one time on the same plant,
both plain scarlet flowers, and those striped with scarlet and
white. So with Dahlias, Verbenas, Petunias, and scores of other
plants; but in all of these the flowers only vary, the foliage
does not. In the case of this new striped Rose, the distinct
change in foliage is to me more marvellous than even that in
the flower. We have named this Rose "American Banner,"
as the colors are very nearly those of the stripes of our National
flag. When a name can be to some extent descriptive also, it
is always, we think, of advantage.
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