I'm not a premium member of hmf.com/roses or I'd do a detailed search of red Hybrid Perpetuals.

I'd be very grateful for any ideas as to what the name of this huge, very fragrant red globular rose might be.
Thanks,
Lux.

i can't identify the rose without a picture but the largest rose i grow that is similar to your description is the bourbon madame de sevigne.

on another subject, i remember you really loved the picture i showed of Phil Edinger's Noisette. the rose is not very happy in my cold part shade garden so if you'd like it i'd be glad to give it a good home. it's still in a pot.

diane

Thanks for answering,
Lux.
p.s. bebemarie, thank you very much, but I won't know how many roses I can grow until after I move.

Often, red HPs veer toward a deep pink or purple. Nonetheless, there are quite a few that might come close in color, but their size and/or perfume may not necessarily match your rose's superlatives.

However, take a look at the following:

Alfred Colomb, American Beauty, The Black Prince, Captain Hayward, Charles Lefèbvre, Duke of Edinburgh, Eclair, Empereur du Maroc, Fisher Holmes, George Dickson, Général Jacqueminot, Gloire de Bruxelles, Gloire de Ducher, Hugh Dickson, Prince Camille de Rohan, Prince Noir, and Souvenir d'Alphonse Lavallee.

I wouldn't be surprised if your rose turned out to be a more modern rose, perhaps an HT. Enormous bloom size, true red color with some blueing at the end and strong wafting damask scent sound a lot like Ena Harkness (also as Cl.). However, while Ena's shape is somewhat high-centered, it also tends toward globular, and its blooms are often, but not always nodding. If the plant is happy, the flowers are absolutely enormous without looking clumsy, and the buds can be very 'fat'. I grow the climbing version of Ena Harkness, and our childminder has a large climber of it which perfumes her entire courtyard. This rose produces the biggest blooms I have ever seen, although I have to say that I'm not sure that I've ever seen unopened rose buds bigger than the size of a baseball! Anyway, the related and famous Crimson Glory (also as Cl.), also nodding, would be another option, I think it's perhaps even more globular, i.e. less high-centered. Not sure if their leaves and prickles are a match though. But they've both been around for some 60-70 years.

Hope this helps a litte, but do try and post a pic of your red 'HP' here.

Andrea

Jeri

Don't know if the lack of thorns on the stem of the specimen provided rules 'de Hollande' out, maybe a larger sample would have included them.

Petal count:60 large petals
3 petaloids.
I was surprised to see a good number of pollen pellets in the center of all those petals, the color was odd, the lightest ivory, scarcely yellow at all. I wonder if this is from the bud not opening, and the pollen perhaps being immature.

Thanks all,
I am grateful for your suggetions,
Luxrosa

Jeri

Stasi

However, much more intriguing to me than determining how far one or the other rose has made it into middle-age, is lux's description of that unopened bud of a size bigger than a baseball. I've never ever seen anything like it, certainly not on a rose. So I have to conclude that I really need that fabulous fertilizer with which this plant has clearly been blessed. Now can we find out about that, please?

A.

-it has a rich and strong damask fragrance, as strong as the most deeply scented red rose I've ever smelled, even more strongly scented than "Etoille de Holland",
-and the bloom is nearly twice as large, as E. de H., and much heavier, with those 60 petals.

If "Xaviers Rose" were green, the massive rosebud would appear in size and shape very similar to a large artichoke in sillouette. It is a most unusual rose and I've never come across any rose even remotely like it in size and weight.

Thanks all, I do feel like we're getting closer to an i.d..

Lux.

Before this one, the biggest I've heard of is 'Great Century' whose flowers can reach 8" across when open. But that's a pale pink, lightly fragrant one, so it can't be the one you're looking to i.d.

A second though is Guinee (1936) which is simular in color, form, and fragrance but smaller.

From its shape and style of bloom it appears to have a strong H.P. influence.
One blossom has a great weight, for a rose blossom, a hardball baseball came to my mind when it was in my palm.

The little scrap of foliage on the cutting the man brought me appeared somewhat typical for a H.T. but these were only 3 leaflet leaves. I would guess from those traits listed above that it could be a first or second generation Hybrid Tea.
I would think that it would have been bred in a warm climate because it only opens fully in 80+ degree weather
No Identification yet, as of March 9th, 2011.
I would guess that in the modern age since patenting that such a rose would not have a great commercial value, because of the limitation from its requirement of heat to fully open, I've been looking among H.T.s that were introduced between the 1860's through the 1940's for an identification, to begin with.
I've moved since getting the rose blossom and haven't seen the man who owns the rosebush since, but it is still on my mind.

thanks all,
Luxrosa

I would add that in the Emeryville, Rockwood, PIedmont, area- I've seen what must be Hyrbird teas (flower shape and uprightness of bush) that look ancient- with huge thick trunks. Plant shape sort of similar to a jade bush. Not real tall (4-5 feet or so).

Here's here "solved" thread: