Rosa alba L. var. semiplena

Horticultural & Botanical History

This rose may be synonymous with Catherine Gore’s ‘Centifolia Nivea’, synonyms ‘White Unique Hundred-leaved’, ‘Centifolia Mutabilis’, and ‘Centifolia Unica’, with full, middle-sized white flowers.  Don also lists R. alba nova plena and R. alba nova coelestis in his Section VI, Centifoliae of the General System of Gardening and Botany.  No descriptions are given.  According to Thomas, Rosa alba semi-plena is probably identical to Rosa alba suaveolens or nivea, one of the roses grown for distilling attar at Kazanlick.  In spelling 'nivea' is close to 'nova', although its meaning refers to 'snow' rather than 'new'.  (It could be an error or incorrect transliteration, but this is very speculative as Macarthur consistently calls it alba nova in correspondence.) 

‘The White Rose.  Rosa alba.  This tree grows taller than most other kinds of roses having fewer prickles on ye branches; and those pretty large; the leaves are a dark green, and the flowers white.  It grows in gardens, and flowers in June.  The flowers are esteemed drying, binding and cooling.  The water distilled from them is much used in Collyriums for sore inflam’d eyes.  The official preparation is the distilled water.’  [Blackwell pl.73/1737].

History at Camden Park

Listed in the 1845, 1850 and 1857 catalogues [T.861/1845].  In a letter to John Bailey of Adelaide in 1845 Macarthur describes it as ‘received only 12 months since from England.’ 

Notes