A SPORTING ROSE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3711, 28 April 1925, Page 11

A SPORTING ROSE.

CLIMBING PAUL LEDE. The mutability of plants is one of the perplexing puzzles of plant physiologists, for changesn l ay occur in the habit, flowers, and the period of blooming for no apparont reason. Gardeners have long been familiar with such changes, to which they apply the term sporting, and to this departure from the normal we are indebted to some of our best garden subjects. Change of colour of the flower is the most frequent deviation in this respect, but sometimes the whole habit of the plant becomes altered and a new type may arise. It may be a dwarf form, one with a fastigiate habit, or, as is frequent among roees, a climbing type quite distinct from its progenitor. Roses sometimes give colour sports, but of their mutations the most interesting is the development of a climbing form from the bush type, and this proclivity has occurred in such well-known sorts as La France, Mme* Abel Chatenay, Caroline Testout, Richmond, Lady Hillingdon, Ophelia, and Chateau de Clos Vougeot. In 1913, the beautiful variety Paul Lede, a hybrid tea rose with petals of a glorious shade of apricot and orange, suddenly developed a climbing habit in Messrs Stuart Low and Oo.’s nursery at Enfield. The flower ie in every respect like that of the type, but the shoots will attain to a length of so much a 3 eight feet in a single season. The rambling habit is, it is true, not so pronounced m these climbing sports from hybrid teas as it is in the Wichuraianas and other true ramblers, but such plants serve a useful purpose for furnishing pillars, supports of pergolas, archways and similar structures, and their flowers are greatly superior. In Messrs Stuart Low’s catalogue, Climbing Paul Lede is described as the best of the climbing hybrid tea roses, and even when allowance is made for the pride which originators of new and choice plants always take in their novelties, it must be admitted that this climbing form of such a popular and beautiful rose is a great acquisition in the rose garden.—Gardeners’ Chronicle.