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From “Rosa laevigata and Its Hybrids” in Climbing Roses of the World by Charles Quest-Ritson:

“Rosa laevigata is known as the Cherokee rose, because it has spread over much of the American South. Indeed, it was first described in 1803 from specimens collected in Georgia, where it is now the state flower. The Australian rosarian Susan Irvine (1997) wrote that ‘like the Banksias, it has become part of our landscape. It might eventually achieve wild rose status here too.’ Rosa laevigata is not hardy in New England or central Europe.

“Rosa laevigata… is a vigorous shrub which naturally clambers up trees to a height of 10 m, aided by scattered, strong, reddish brown, hooked prickles. The evergreen leaves have three to five (usually three) leaflets and are brilliant, shiny, dark green, and quite hairless on both sides. The leaflets are variable in size and shape, but usually 4-9 cm long and 2-5 cm wide, hard, leathery, and short stalked. The midribs are sometimes crimson and may also have prickles underneath. The flowers are white, invariably solitary, single, scented (of gardenia), and 6-9 cm across. They are borne on bristly stalks, with bristly receptacles and bristly sepals which persist for a long time…. The handsome golden stamens are very striking. The fruits are 3.5-4.0 cm across, egg shaped, orange or red, and very bristly.

“Rosa laevigata is native to lowland areas of southern China and Indo-China. In warm climates, it is one of the most beautiful of all single roses, especially when covered with its brilliant white flowers, which are large for a species and wonderfully set off by their great boss of yellow stamens and the dark, glossy leaves. It has been little used for hybridising, although a double-flowered form was reported from California in 1900.”

From “American Beauty” in In Search of Lost Roses by Thomas Christopher:

“[When the Cherokee Rose] was adopted in 1916 as the state flower of Georgia; that resolution began: ‘Whereas, the Cherokee Rose, having its origin among the aborigines of the northern portion of the state of Georgia, is indigenous to its soil, and grows with equal luxuriance in every county of the state…’ This is not only poor English, it also runs counter to the opinions of most botanists. This species of rose is common throughout Georgia, as well as the rest of the Southeastern states — the whole area, in fact, once inhabited by the Cherokee Indians….

“Moreover, the rose has been established there for a long time. The first scientific description of it appeared in the Flora Boreali Americana of French botanist Andre Michaux, a work that was published posthumously in 1803. Michaux, who rambled up and down our eastern seaboard for twelve years, collecting plants first for the French monarchy and later for the Republic, wrote of finding the rose he named laevigata in backwoods Georgia….

“He could hardly have missed it, since this plant is not only common, it climbs through the trees to a height as great as fifty feet. A single specimen may spread over an area of ten thousand square feet, bearing in May or June a fragrant shower of golden-centered three-inch white flowers. A spectacular rose, but not a native….

“It’s Chinese, the botanists agree. This species is also common throughout the warmer regions of that country, where it is known as Chin Ying Tzu, the “Golden Cherry,” that is a tribute to the plant’s colorful hips. The first record of its arrival in Europe dates to 1696 — like many of its fellows, it travelled deck-passage on an East India Company merchant-man. How and when it arrived in North America is unknown; how it penetrated to the interior so quickly (if 1696 does mark its introduction to the West) is inconceivable….”

Hello!

This is the second of two posts with photos of a Cherokee Rose (Rosa laevigata) that I took at Oakland Cemetery in March. The first post is Rosa laevigata, the Cherokee Rose (1 of 2), where I described the plant’s botanical characteristics and some of what I learned about its botanical and cultural history. That post showed the Cherokee Rose’s ability to traverse long distances both horizontally and vertically, making observations that it can stretch 30-50 feet evident from this single specimen. In this post, we get a closer look at individual flowers — which are especially striking when they fill the photo frame in groups of two or three emanating from single (or sometimes separate) stems.

As I continued researching the Cherokee Rose, I came across this botanical drawing by Pierre-Joseph Redoute, from the 1821 second volume of his three-book series Les Roses. Here the plant is identified by one of its earlier scientific names Rosa nivea, and by the common name Rosier blanc de Neige, or Snow White Rose — an especially fitting nickname given the pure white, soft, and slightly translucent flowers the Cherokee produces.

Redoute’s interpretation aligns quite well with the excerpt from Climbing Roses of the World by Charles Quest-Ritson that I included at the top of this post, deftly illustrating the placement of flowers, the three- to five-part structure of the leaves, and its slightly curved or hook-shaped thorns. The fruits — “egg-shaped, orange or red, and very bristly” — are likely missing from the drawing since they tend to appear much further down a plant’s stems or canes so might not have been present in Redoute’s subject. You can, however, find a few examples of those in my first post that match Quest-Ritson’s description exactly if you hunt for them. Or look here…

… where one of these interesting structures is near the bottom of the cane. Their presence, I have learned, is part of the lifecycle and reproductive workflow of the Cherokee Rose, and those I found that are distant from this spring’s flowers are likely from the plant’s previous season. These are equivalent to rose hips produced by many members of the Rose or Rosaceae family of plants, but in the Cherokee Rose, their large size (most I saw were about two inches long) and durability make it more likely they’ll persist from one year to the next. You can see a close-up image of one that I took in January of 2022 (so long ago!) on this post, in the first gallery, at a time when I didn’t actually know what they were, and just thought they were photographically fascinating.

In her book A Southern Garden: A Handbook for the Middle South, author Elizabeth Lawrence states that the white Cherokee Rose blooms around April in this region (as we have seen) but may also produce blooms in the fall or as late as December. Of course, I now have a note on my calendar to follow up and check for signs of blooming life as summer ends. It will be a fun new mystery to solve if this plant does produce another round of blooms before winter, though — if not — I can still hunt down some of its spiked hips among the tangled vines and canes.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

From “Rosa laevigata” in History of the Rose by Roy E. Shepherd:

“R. laevigata and R. multiflora cathayensis were the first roses sent from China to Europe by the English East India Company, and the former was first mentioned botanically by [Leonard] Plukenet in 1696. How it reached America is not known, but it is difficult to believe that a species as well established as was R. laevigata in colonial times had been introduced by Europeans…. We know definitely that R. laevigata is one of the most ancient and common roses of China, and that it was found in several of our southern states by the first white men to explore those regions.

“The name R. laevigata was first applied to this species by [Andre] Michaux in 1803. He found it in many of our southern states and was firmly convinced that it was a native American species. Many names have been applied to this rose, but the most popular one is the common name Cherokee Rose….

“This very beautiful and distinct species thrives only in the far south, and although it may live farther north, it will rarely bloom…. The large, pure white, single flowers with fluffy golden yellow stamens are fragrant and about three inches in diameter. They are produced in May or June on a vigorous trailing or climbing plant, whose canes are often 15 feet or more in length. The leaflets, 3 or 5 in number, are bright green and highly ornamental. The hips are oblong to round and are densely covered with small prickles.

“Left undisturbed, R. laevigata will make a prodigious growth; a plant in Florida has attained a height of 50 feet and covers an approximate area of 10,000 square feet. In Georgia, where it is quite generally distributed, it has been named the state flower.”

From “American Beauties” in The Rose: A True History by Jennifer Potter:

“The Cherokee rose is not native to America…. It comes from China…. Leonard Plukenet, Royal Professor of Botany and gardener to Queen Mary, first introduced it into European literature under the name Rosa alba Cheusanensis in a work of 1705. How it had spread across the southern American states by the time of Michaux’s journey is a mystery….

“This Chinese native was still masquerading as an all-American champion in 1916, when the Georgia Federation of Women’s Clubs persuaded the state legislature to adopt the Cherokee rose as the floral emblem for Georgia…. [The] Georgia state legislature located the original Cherokee rose firmly ‘among the aborigines of the northern portion of the State of Georgia’, claiming that it was ‘indigenous to its soil, and grows with equal luxuriance in every county of the State’.

“Mythic histories continue to stick to this very tenacious rose, linking it to the ‘Trail of Tears‘ that marked the US government’s forcible removal of more than 16,000 Cherokee Indian people from their homelands in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Georgia, sending them to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. Hundreds of Cherokee died during their trip west, and thousands more perished from the consequences of relocation….

“According to the legend of the Cherokee rose, when the Trail of Tears began in 1838, the Cherokee mothers were grieving and crying so much they were unable to help their children survive the journey. The elders prayed for a sign that would lift the mothers’ spirits to give them strength. The next day a beautiful rose began to grow where each of the mother’s tears fell — white for their tears, and gold-centred in recognition of the gold taken from Cherokee lands….”

Hello!

This is the first of two posts with photos of a Cherokee Rose that I took at Oakland Cemetery in March. The plant’s scientific identification is Rosa laevigata; and while it is sometimes known as Camellia Rose or Mardan Rose, Cherokee Rose is its most enduring and historically significant common name.

Despite having walked by it many times on my trips to Oakland, this was the first time I was able to photograph it successfully while its flowers were in bloom. Unlike many roses that will produce a succession of blooms (sometimes across seasons), the Cherokee Rose has only one short burst of flowers during the spring, most of which will last just a few days. I usually find the flower petals already spent and scattered along the sidewalks, but apparently got there just in time this year.

Here you see the widest shot of the plant I was able to get, where you can also see some of the botanical characteristics mentioned in the two excerpts I included at the top of this post. The plant emerges from the ground toward the lower right of this photograph, in an elevated section of the garden bounded by a four-foot wall, then sends its canes in arcs toward the statue at the left — which, not coincidentally, is where the most sunlight reaches the plant. I estimate that the statue is about 15 feet tall, so we can conclude that the plant has spanned 15-20 feet to get to it, supporting itself along the way with any tree branches, shrubs, or vines it contacts.

It’s a challenge to photograph, partly because it’s only approachable from one side since the space behind the plant isn’t accessible. Its presence in the shade of one of Oakland’s giant Magnolias means that while the plant may benefit from the mottled light that filters through, that same lighting overpowers a sunny-day photograph with blown-out highlights, rendering the translucent flower petals nearly invisible. I was fortunate to have this encounter on an overcast day, which made the background lighting more manageable and easy to further reduce in Lightroom, revealing the plant with sufficient detail. And this meant I was able to capture wider views of the plant — rather than just shooting closeups of the flowers — and use various magic formulas in Lightroom to visually separate the plant from its botanically complicated background.

Since I hadn’t photographed it before, I was unfamiliar with its history because I typically only research plants when I take their pictures. I’ve been quite surprised by the rich botanical and cultural history of the Cherokee Rose, and how much coverage it gets in the sources I typically use, like those from the Internet Archive I excerpted above. Its ambiguous origins in the United States — still indeterminate — are a fascinating part of the plant’s history, given that it was once considered native to the United States but subsequently identified as native only to China. Its distribution map from Plants of the World Online…

… illustrates that precisely, where (colored green) we see the boundaries of its native regions in China, and where it was introduced and propagated (colored purple) to a contiguous region of U.S. southern states and persists in only those states.

Many of these states were among those instituting the Trail of Tears displacement and ethnic cleansing of Native Americans in the nineteenth century, or were states through which those Native Americans traveled as they were forced out of the South. While the plant’s common name Cherokee Rose wasn’t derived from one of the displaced tribes — the Cherokee — it is associated with the plant’s endemic presence on the tribe’s lands. With that in mind, the Cherokee Rose’s connections to the Trail of Tears and the mythical story of how it came into existence with white flowers with gold centers (excerpted above) create an intense relationship between its history, its appearance and botanical attributes, and its presence in a historical memorial garden like Oakland.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!