SOME FLOWER MONSTROSITIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3212, 6 May 1911, Page 11

SOME FLOWER MONSTROSITIES.

BLUE GREEN

AND BLACK ROSES

During the last two years there has been a stir made over a so-called blue rose. The name is Yeilchenblau. It was, a writer in “Amateur Gardening"’ says, introduced by Schmidt in 1908. It" is seedling from Crimson Rambler, but it is f av from being a blue rose, although it comes as near that elusive color as any. When it first opens it is a reddish-lilac, changing to amethyst and steel blue. The color is really" a vast improvement upon the. dull slatey-blues found in many varieties as they "fade —such ax Madame Norbet Levavassuer and the old Gloire de Duches, for example—but it cannot be said to be really blue. That color lias yet to come in roses. Tlie green rose (Virdifiora) is, the same writer goes on to say, a monstrosity among Chinas, sent out by Bambridge and Harrison in 1855. The flowers are rosette in shape, and borne in large trusses. If not too much exposed to the sun they are the purest green, and when well grown rather a novelty. Too much sun, . and again late in the season, gives the petals a tinge of Indian red. Really the petals are transformed into leaf-like organs. It is a very hardy rose. Emperor du Maroe is the nearest to the black rose. It came from Guinoisseau in 1858.