Souvenir de la Malmaison

This rose will soon be replanted.
  • Classification: Bourbon   
  • Flower Color:  light pink
  • Flower Size:  5 inches
  • Flower Form: cupped at first, then opening flat, quartered
  • Petal Count: 50 plus  
  • Fragrance: strong, old rose, fruity
  • Repeat Bloomer: yes
  • Foliage: light green, glossy
  • Plant Height: 3-6 feet  
  • Plant Width: 3-4 feet
  • Growth Habit: upright
  • Disease Resistant: no 
  • Hybridizer: Jean Bèluze (France)
  • Registered: 1843
  • Parentage:  ‘Mme. Desprez’ x a tea rose
  • ARS* Rating: 8.6 (a very good to excellent rose)
    *American Rose Society Rating

Awards:
  • 1991 World Old Rose Hall of Fame winner

Notes:
  • “When hybridizer Jean Bèluze introduced this pale pink Bourbon in 1844, the empress Josèphine’s rose garden at the Château de Malmaison was indeed only a memory; poachers had stolen or destroyed the imperial plants decades before.  There’s no truth to the myth that ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ originated in a cutting taken from the grounds by a Russian nobleman who once visited the château as Josèphine’s guest.” --- Brenner & Scanniello, (A Rose by Any Name, page 173) 

  • “Not all the early hybridizing of China roses was intentional.  One of the most famous cross breedings took place accidentally on the French Ile de Bourbon (now called Rèunion) in the Indian Ocean, where hedgerows were commonly made up of two rows of roses, one of Chinas (‘Parson’s Pink China’ or ‘Old Blush’) and the other of the European Autumn Damask, the repeating damask, which the French called ‘Rose des Quatre Saisons’.  The owner of an estate on the island discovered in one of his hedges a young rosebush that was different from the others, and he transplanted it into his garden.  A French botanist noticed it and in 1817 sent its seeds back to France to be cultivated.  Known as Bourbon roses, these roses are repeat blooming, but they have larger flowers than the Chinas, whose blooms are relatively small, and they are also more fragrant.” --- Stephan Scanniello & Tania Baard, (Roses of America, page 77).