'Rouletti'
Dwarf China;  Discovered in 1818

Date Planted: June 2001, large pot
Source: Chamblee's
Exposure: Full Sun

Part of the fascination of old roses are the stories, and 'Rouletti' is no exception, for it is the ancestor of all Miniature Roses.  The story (as I've heard it) follows.

In the early 1800s dwarf China Roses appeared in the European marketplace where they became popular as window sill plants, especially in Paris.  However, the craze for breeding Hybrid Perpetuals was entering it's heyday and interest in the dwarf Chinas began to ebb.

Then Serendipity played it's hand.

At the end of World War I a Swiss soldier by the name of Colonel Roulet discovered tiny roses growing in pots in the windows of Mauborget in Switzerland. The famed plantsman, Henry Correvon of Geneva, went to see Colonel Roulet's discovery, only to find the entire village of Mauborget had burned to the ground and not a single plant had remained.

Correvon, however, learned that a woman in another village, Onnens, had a similar plant and he and Colonel Roulet managed to obtain a small cutting from it.

Writing about his find, Correvon said, "We increased it, and soon had hundreds of plants which I named Rosa Rouletti, after my friend." The original name forever lost to us, the rose now know as 'Rouletti' was introduced in 1922 and has since played a role in the breeding of a host of modern day Miniature Roses.

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