'Joasine Hanet' and "Portland from Glendora"

[BCD]

Rose literature—and I mean historic documents—is fortunately fairly
generous with mentions of Vibert's 1847 Damask Perpetual ‘Joasine
Hanet’. I could list a score of them in a comprehensive manner, and
might do just that in a formal article. For the moment, however, I’ll
just list a few. These descriptions will all, I think, be found to be
pretty homogeneous in what they mention, just as would be the case if I
had brought together the entirety to be found with diligent searching.
Some out there are of course mere copywork; but others were clearly
written independently.

As you will see in my representative selection below, what will be found
in many of these are, happily, some very distinctive features in
‘Joasine Hanet’ rather than the generic “pink, fragrant, beautiful”
stuff which overtides the world of rose descriptions. In no order, we
have the likes of:

“Medium-sized[,] full, red purple, in a rosette, corymbiferous” (my
translation, as with all here, and expanding abbreviations), Van
Houtte’s publication No. 31, 1848, the description repeated on two
pages, pp. 57 and 74, taken I believe from Vibert’s 1847 catalog.

Laurentius’s catalog, in 1861, has it “Purple-red, and blooming in
umbels” (p. 61).

“Vigorous growth; flower medium-sized, full, growing in corymbs, very
floriferous; color, bright grenadine” (Max Singer, Dictionnaire, v. 1,
p. 395, 1885).

With Wesselhöft, it’s ‘Flowers medium sized, full, bright purple-red, in
beautiful bouquets, blooming early and freely” (Der Rosenfreund, p. 148,
1873).

Ellwanger (The Rose, p. 265), has it that it “Belongs to the old
Portland group. Deep rose, tinged with violet, medium size, full,
quartered shape; fragrant, very hardy, a profuse bloomer. The color and
form are bad, and destroy its usefulness” (1892).

The Biltmore catalog from so late as 1913 has it as “An odd-shaped Rose
of peculiar color, cultivated because of its eccentricities. The
flowers are of medium size and strangely formed, with the appearance of
having been quartered. In color they are deep rose, tinged with
violet—a shading as distinctive as is the shape of the blossom. The
fragrance is very strong. The plant is of luxuriant growth, with long
shoots, and thrives well in temperate climates. A few plants of the
Joasine Hanet will add interest and distinction to gardens of ample
extent” (p. 19).

It would be tedious as well as unnecessary to continue, as the above
already gives a good idea of what there is out there on ‘Joasine Hanet’
in the old literature. As stated before, we see here some non-generic
characteristics, distinctive in the group of Damask Perpetuals: Blooms
in clusters, corymbs, bouquets—whatever you want to call them—the
“peculiar color” of violet-tinged rose, grenadine, purple-red—a range
we’d expect—the form, be it quartered, rosette, or just “strange,” the
medium size of the flowers, the fragrance, the “luxuriant growth, with
long shoots.” Distinctive in the group of Damask Perpetuals—and
indisputably present, all of them, in the “Portland from Glendora.”

As it appears some have forgotten, I have written a series of detailed
articles examining each and every Damask Perpetual, the extinct ones as
well as the extant ones: “Out of the Mists of the Past into the Mists
of the Present: The Early Damask Perpetuals,” dealing with all the
varieties from earliest times to 1812, “Progress of the Damask
Perpetuals from 1813 to 1829,” “The Damask Perpetuals of the 1830s,”
“The Damask Perpetuals of the 1840s,” “The Damask Perpetuals of the
1850s,” and ending with “Back into the Mists: The Late Damask Perpetuals
1860-1900.” I do not know of anyone who has covered a class as
exhaustively as this; I do not know of any class which any number of
authors has covered as exhaustively as this. I hope, then, that I can’t
be accused of vanity when I state that I tend to think I know something
about Damask Perpetuals.

One variety among all these DPs, extant or extinct, displays the array
of characteristics shown by “Portland from Glendora,” one and only one.
It is ‘Joasine Hanet’. The fact that it had some lasting popularity,
indeed reaching Australia, and indeed being offered so late in the U.S.
as 1913, explains how it came to have been found in various locations
while its less widespread (both in location and time) colleagues became
extinct.

And yet people express doubt about identifying “Portland from Glendora”
as ‘Joasine Hanet’. They never state the reason, they just content
themselves with doubting, though not only I who have studied the class
minutely and intensively and continuously for decades, but also its very
discoverer in Glendora, have seen merit in the identification. What
does it take to convince such doubters? What do they know that we
others have not considered? What greater expertise do they have?

If there is any better candidate for the identification of “Portland
from Glendora”—and I mean more aptly fitting the descriptions in the
literature—let it be indicated and brought forth. If there are any live
roses found “out there” which date back as having been continuously in
the collection a hundred years, with an equally old label stating
‘Joasine Hanet’, let the person who has found them let me see them and
compare them with both the literature’s descriptions and with “Portland
from Glendora.” I’m sure one of the two of us will come out of the
meeting much wiser than when coming in. And if anyone still has these
misty doubts which never quite compose themselves to express a reason,
let such people keep the doubts to themselves until they can supply an
explanation which weighs heavier than the actual facts which I have
brought forward. Caution is always a necessity; but meritless
skepticism sows nothing but needless dissension and ill-will.

Best Wishes,

--BCD