Old Roses Renamed - the Cis Binary Rosarian

Before the modern nonsense of naming hurricanes and tropical storms after men, when they are most obviously female phenomena, rose breeders succumbed to gender dysphoria and started giving roses - the most feminine of flowers - men's names. It's an absurdity. Let us be explicit on this matter from the outset lest there be any confusion: the entire symbolism of the rose (and by extension most if not all flowers, but certainly the rose!) alludes to the female part, the floral similacra of the female sexual anatomy. One would think that rose breeders and rose lovers would be conscious of this simple fact even where they are too polite to mention it. A rose by any other name. The rose, indeed, has a rich symbolism and a myriad of meanings, but behind them all is this one anatomical reality - the flower resembles the vulva, the cunnus. There is no escaping it. Anyone who has even a passing familiarity with both marvels of nature - roses and the sexual organs of women - should know this. It is therefore a travesty, a perversion, a grotesque malformation, to name a rose after a man. Do men have vulva? No. It is as simple as that. 

The rose vulva. How explicit do we need to be? 

The present writer, being an enthusiast of old (or so-called 'heritage') roses, and having once - in more halcyon days - had a large garden replete with them, has been offended by many of the masculine names in his collection over the years. Often we have a beautiful, deliciously feminine rose and yet tasteless - and no doubt sexless - rose breeders have blighted her with the name of some half-witted and undistinguished buffoon with a moustache. It is like naming a gorgeous girl 'Thomas' or 'John'. Why would they do this? On the whole, of course, our roses are named appropriately. The great majority of them have women's names, even if inelegant ones - 'Frau Dagmar Hastrup'. But some have been given men's names, and it is, frankly,  irksome. The present writer, at least, subscribes unashamedly to old fashioned "cis binary" (as they are called) gender categories and when it comes to roses of the equally old fashioned type will not abide by anything less.

The following is a short catalogue of lovely roses that were originally mislabelled with masculine names. The present author has taken it upon himself to rename them and hopes that rose breeders will in future take note and learn from their mistakes: 

MADEMOISELLE JOSEPHINE MARCUS

Americans, as we all know, are appallingly sentimental about their Presidents and often treat them as a cheap substitute for royalty. This very popular American rose, famed for its intense red colour and deep fragrance - a very image of feminine passion - was named 'Mister Lincoln', one of the great travesties of rosarian nomenclature. There is nothing about this rose that in any way suggests any aspect of the life or character of the drab and colourless and chaste Mr Lincoln. More happily, it has here been renamed Mademoiselle Josephine Marcus after the lover of Wyatt Earp.

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IMPERIA LA DIVINA

This hybrid perpetual, circa 1868, - a brazen floosy - has formerly been known as the Duke of Edinburgh! A less rose-like appellation for such an exhibitionist can hardly be imagined. She has been been recast here as Imperia La Divina, Imperia the Divine, the title given to the famous XVth century Roman courtesan.

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QUEEN ZUBAYDA

The damasks are the most fragrant of the roses and evoke the sensuality of the mythic East. This rose, once called Baron Prevost, is in fact a hybrid perpetual, but has retained the intense oriental fragrance of her forebears. Accordingly we have chosen to bless her with an oriental and aristocratic name, Queen Zubayda, this famous woman being the wife of the great IXth century Caliph (of Arabian Nights fame) Harun Al-Rasheed.

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ASPASIA

Another fine old rose scarred with an ecclesiastical title. She has been known as 'The Bishop'. This shy creature, who flowers but once a year, and arrived on the scene some time in the late 1700s has he striking deep mauve coloured flowers with bright yellow stamens. She is one of the present writer's favourites, and he has renamed her Aspasia after the famed seductress of philosophers and lover of Pericles. 

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MARION HALL BEST

If there is one thing worse than naming roses after military men, it is naming them after clergy. It is a sheer act of perversity to name a flower that is emblematic of erotic love after a clergyman! This lovely semi-double rose of creamy white flowers with golden stamens, dated 1926, was blighted with the name 'Bishop Darlington'. She has now been relieved of this burden and renamed after the famous Australian interior designer Marion Hall Best, 1926 being the year she was married. 

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FRAULINE AMELIE BEESE

Introduced in 1886, this rose has large, fleshy loose petals of a bold pink colour that is often described as "tinged with copper" or as having "copper undertones" - a somewhat 'metallic' pink, in any case. It has formerly been known as Dr Grill. (Who Dr Grill was and why he deserved having such an overtly feminine flower named after him we may never know!) With hindsight, she has been renamed Frauline Amelie Beese after the German aviation pioneer - one of the first women to fly - who was born in 1886.

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NAOMI EISEN

Named 'Sir Thomas Lipton', purveyor of junk teas, this cross between R. rugosa alba and the polyantha 'Clotilde Soupert' is a scented bush rose ideal for hedges and dated 1900. She is now known as Naomi Eisen, named after a lovely young woman, gardener and tea drinker, of the present writer's acquaintance.

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LIANE DE POUGY

A double cupped bloom of pale blush flowers striped with crimson - what a sight! This sweet scented rose, originally misnamed as 'Ferdinand Pichard', is described as "the last of the Bourbons" but is technically speaking a hybrid perpetual. Introduced in 1921. She has been named after the notorious French courtesan Liane de Pougy, famed for her marriages, lesbian affairs and for the time Sarah Bernhardt  advised her that, when on stage, she ought to "keep her pretty mouth shut."

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PRINCESS ADELHEID

This light pink hybrid rugosa, introduced in 1899, is intensely fragrant but, for some reason, has been cursed with the name 'Conrad Ferdinand Meyer'. No longer. Henceforth she will be known as Princess Adelheid. Her Serene Highness Princess Adelheid of Schaumburg-Lippe, wife of Friedrich, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg died, aged 78, in the summer this charming and aristocratic rose was introduced.

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EVE

The introduction of the repeat blooming Tea roses in the first half of the XIXth century revolutionised roses forever: it is the line of demarcation between the modern roses and those of the ancien regime. This rose, of 1838, with salmon-pink blooms and a touch of apricot here and there, is regarded as the first of the modern breed, and therefore they named her 'Adam'. Good God! Gender dysphoria of Biblical proportions! We have here corrected that eschatological blunder and named her 'Eve' as she should of been from the start.

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MISS SALLY WHIPPLE

Rose catalogues will sometimes say that this rose, once called 'Henry Nevard', and introduced in 1924, has "masculine qualities". Hardly! (Some of the nonsense written in rose catalogues beggars belief.) As readers can see in the photograph below, she is all woman. She is described as a scarlet/crimson hybrid perpetual with cupped petals and a strong, heady fragrance. Masculine? We have chosen to call her Miss Sally Whipple after the name of the main character in the 1924 film An Average Woman, the name in this case being ironic (because this woman is far from average!) 

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MISS JESSICA MILROY

William Lobb is assuredly one of the ugliest names ever imposed upon a rose. We have rescued this moss rose from that infamy and renamed her Miss Jessica Milroy after a lady of the present writer's acquaintance. The moss roses are a special class; strange, mystical, unusual. This one features dark purple semi-double flowers that become darker with age. The flowers are perfumed but like all the mosses the 'moss' feature on the buds is deeply camphorous, almost like lavender oil. 1855.

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PHRYNE

Captain Thomas? What sort of name is that for a rose? This pale yellow climber, bred in 1935, with its dark stamens contrasting with its soft and delicate yellow single petals, tending to fade to white, was for some unfathomable reason named after a military man. Here, though, she has more deservedly been renamed Phryne, a nickname signifying "yellow" given to the famous Greek hetaera (whose real name was Mnesarete.)

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MARIE-SOPHIE

It ought to be a iron-clad rule - indeed, there ought to be a law - that no rose should be named after bumptious military figures. This very fine rose of 1853, first of the repeat flowering hybrid perpetuals, and historically speaking the very first long-stemmed cut rose, was unfortunately named 'General Jacqueminot'. The blooms are shapely and dark red, the fragrance sweet - surely not qualities for which the General was known. So why? We have renamed this fine flower Marie-Sophie after Mademoiselle Marie-Sophie Leroyer de Chantepie with whom Gustav Flaubert corresponded concerning the classic realist novel Madam Bovary.

Harper McAlpine Black