Is she fragrant, vigorous, floriferous, disease-prone, thorny? You say that she's "clearly a Tea", but is there any possibility that she's an early HT with Tea charachteristics? If you heard the study name, would you recognize it? Sorry- you weren't expecting the Spanish Inquisition, were you?

Maybe it's Vibert's lost Tea 'Nina'? If so, I'll need to beg for cuttings for a little girl I know named Nina Rose... :>)

Whatever the rose's name, she's a seriously beautiful sight to behold- thanks!

Virginia

Thanks for your thoughts, brittie and Virginia. Yes, it certainly does look a lot like the pictures of 'Souvenir d'un Ami' on HMF (there seems some doubt if those pix are all "fer sher" SduA). Virginia, it's very fragrant with the normal Tea rose fragrance, very vigorous (but in a shrubby way, not a climber way), very floriferous and continuous, not at all disease-prone (in the most humid conditions, maybe just a touch of powdery mildew). As to thorniness, on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being something like 'William Lobb', this would score about a 2 at most. There's really nothing about it to suggest that it's anything but a "pure" Tea--in everything, it's prototypically Tea. To my eye, it has the look of something from the 1870s or 1880s (but of course an older rose could have a newer look, or a newer rose could have an older look). The very mature bush is about 6-7 feet tall (and would be at least that much wide if I'd let it). The flowers never droop; however dangly the branch which bears them might be, the flowers themselves always manage to look upwards. The hips absolutely never ripen, never have a seed. Likely if I had a list of all the unknown Teas that Heritage Rose Gardens offered, I could pick out which one this was, especially if it had the descriptions too. What I remember about this one was that it was one of two unknowns bought at the same time which, planted in a sandy soil, did poorly; but when I moved them just a dozen or so feet away to a very clayey soil, they responded with vigor and looked nothing like they did in their sandy quarters. Aside from curiosity, the reason I'd particularly like to identify it is that, though still vigorous on some limbs, the bush is getting old, and I'd hate for it to die with me not knowing that there are others out there to carry on its beauty. It doesn't seem to want to root from cuttings or by layering (going by my repeated failures over the last five or six years). It's much more beautiful than my pictures convey. There are times when I'd say that the opening bud and young flower with their tints and form are as beautiful as any rose could be.

Neither looked quite like your rose to me. The flowers lacked the somewhat rounded shape and subtle striation that yours has. And 'SdA' is described as having a nodding flower, and you say yours doesn't ever nod if I understand you correctly.

I think you're right to worry about being unable to propagate it. If you're in touch with other rose folk in CA, perhaps you could send a few cuttings out to see if someone else has better luck? Or better conditions for that plant material? A rose that lovely deserves to be more widely grown, and I hope you can figure out a way to share it/ propagate it.

Good luck,
Virginia