This is really good, HU.

Fascinating topic.

I, too, have read different opinions about what the myrrh in Austins is supposed to smell like. Some say the resin, some say Myrrhis odorata. Does anyone know if David Austin himself clarified this? I have some Myrrh incense in stick form, but it smells nothing like the Austin flowers to me. I've never smelled Sweet Cecily, though.

The myrhh scent in the Austins smells like soap to me. I never get the anise note that others describe. I don't have a great sense of smell, though. I have Chaucer now, and I'm hoping to get Tamora one day to compare.

There's now a debate about whether the parentage of Constance Spry was actually Belle Amour x Dainty Maid rather than Belle Isis. I don't know if that would make any difference.

I believe the "musk" used by the perfume industry today is completely synthetic. The scent of Marie Pavie is often described as musk, as well as some of the Noisettes. Interestingly, though,

Vintage Gardens sent out a newsletter some years ago that had an article about scent in roses, and it placed Marie Pavie in the "facepowder" category and the Noisette Caroline Marniesse in the "musk" category. I'm waiting for mine to be in bloom at the same time so that I can compare.

Thank you very much for your insight, bellegallica - much appreciated. The Myrrh scent note description continues to be passed down to newer introductions since its 'launch' in 1961 and I think the essential difference between the actual resin and the herb Sweet Cecily is that the former is 'bitter Myrrh', and the latter is 'sweet Myrrh'. Constance Spry doesn't exude anything

like the pearls of resin which drip slowly out of the shrub Commiphora when bruised. Likewise, sweet licorice (or anise) used to describe the redolence of the herb simply does not have the romantic resonance of the sepulchral fragrance of the ancient trading routes! The marketing of DA Roses over the years has been highly lyrical to much bemusement - witness the scent profile

of 'Golden Celebration': "They have a strong Tea fragrance, developing wonderfully combined notes of Sauternes wine and strawberry". Quite a selling point! "Light to Meduim" fragrance for me probably means that I might well be struggling to find anything of note; similarly for "Best for Hedging", I read "Very High Thorn Count!" When it comes to nurturing roses over the years, with emotional, physical, and material investment, I suggest that all we ask for is honesty, dependability, and clarity - there's enough angst in the World without our beloved roses failing to meet our expectations of them once set in the ground of our gardens.

Honesty in advertising would be great! In the case of scent, that would be tough since it's so subjective. I read that DA hired a professional "nose" to sniff and describe the fragrance of his roses. How many of us have that sort of sensitivity? I'm lucky to just smell something. I'm never going to get all the individual notes in a fragrance.

You've reminded that I've always wanted to get some Myrrh resin, and grow Sweet Cecily in order to compare them.

I agree that "light to medium" usually means practically nothing in average conditions. Maybe a little whiff of something early in the morning of the first day the flower opens. :-)

I always figured David Austin co-opted the term myrrh, because it sounded so much more exotic than the (more accurate) description of anise or licorice. This is why I always use quotation marks when I refer to his "myrrh" scented roses. A fragrance which I tend to dislike, BTW :-D

That's right bellegallica, at the first light of dawn, when the dew is still fresh

on the newly opened flowers. The reason why the blooms of the rose of perfumery, Rosa x damascena trigintipetala, (Bulgaria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Morocco, others) are culled and processed at dawn, then distilled for rosewater and the concentrated Attar of Rose (my own experience in the Hejaz highlands, At-Taif, Saudi Arabia, where I worked there for a year surrounded by rose fields and a rose perfume cottage industry ... the sought-after scent offered to the Royal Family and sold to pilgrims travelling to the Holy City of Mecca during the annual Hajj.) So at least David Austin's 'Le Nez' is accurate when he/she/them describes a scent profile as "True Old Rose Fragrance", because I am very familiar with that, first hand; and then, knowing bitter resin Myrrh as I do, the frustration was not only seeing the term bandied about with abandon by DA marketing, but that other companies and bloggers were then following suit quite happily!

I also want to thank you for reminding me about Rose Chaucer. A quick search revealed a link from 8 years back "One of my favorite Austin roses - Chaucer" ... and a discussion about royalties and retiring roses, even back then. This speaks volumes of course about DAs current "retirement" program, and leaves a bad smell (so to speak) but the bottom line: there are many thousands of named varieties of roses grown and sold worldwide, and there are other highly-respected breeders of beautiful fragrant roses here in the UK, and that these smaller companies should not be overlooked when searching for the perfect fragrant rose to be nurtured in both public and private gardens up and down the land.

Thanks Susan9SB - absolutely - exotica has sold millions of 'English' roses worldwide, but sitting awkwardly alongside DAs popularity is the current "retirement" program ... Munstead Wood, Lady Emma, A Shropshire Lad, Jude, Graham Thomas (whom I knew personally when he was alive), gosh so many more ... feels like a huge thorn in the side for those who have offered much support and praise over the years.

I can't add anything to the discussion of rose fragrances, but very much believe in buying roses from smaller and specialty nurseries, although I suspect I may have bought Evelyn from the Austin nursery because I badly wanted it and couldn't obtain it anywhere else at the time. I cherish those nurseries, which seem to be steadily dwindling in number, which still offer the antique varieties of roses, which have been and always will be closest to my heart for so many reasons. While we are rapidly hurtling toward an ever more problematic future there is something very comforting about having in our lives and our gardens these connections to the past, however romanticised that past may be. For me, though, the very simple reason is that I find them very often just to be more beautiful, with a soulful quality that is probably at least partially due to the more wild and unfettered quality of these plants. May we never lose them.

Thank you for that Ingrid, really appreciate your time and wisdom.

The Squire Troilus and the Prince are the only DA roses that performed for me in the early Summer. They are extraordinary roses by any measure. I grow OGR's and I am a little baffled by how people go on and on about the fragrances. These roses are very heady and burn my nostrils a tad bit. DA definitely selected undeniable FRAGRANCES in his selection criteria and I am very grateful for that. What are the mid-career roses that possess this myrrh UNDENIABLY? I would be interested to know what the consensus was.

I have Evelyn, Abraham Darby, Jude the Obscure, and James Galway but I have not had them perform for me yet. Evelyn and Darby's buds do not open properly yet. I will try for a Bishop's Castle because the fragrance is supposedly, especially spectacular old rose and when it comes to fragrance I must say Austin's mid career roses that I have sampled do smell THE BEST, I have very fragrant hybrid teas-Papa Meilland is wonderful and Velvet Fragrance gives me hope that she will eventually be the most incredible red,, a moschata which I enjoy , Ruperts Joyberry is very rare but a wonderful "grounded" old rose. Indigo and Madame Isaac Periere have too much of a heady upper nasal quality that just burns and wrecks the whole experience. I am patiently waiting for my Hybrid Perpetuals to establish but I consider them laggards at this point, hopefully they will provide me with some joy in the autumn. Souer Emmanuelle is the rose I am waiting to blossom next. Supposedly the anise-type fragrance. If there is not a consensus on the top myrrh fragranced Austins I will probably not seek one out.

Desdemona is now on my must-have list. That one did catch my eye earlier this year but there was too much drama and noise about The poets wife being an incredible fragrance and I just could not decide.

Clearly you care and have experience with fragrance. It is a very hot topic in the hybridizer association page.

A select few roses have enzymes within them that breakdown colorants within the petals and convert them to a solvent. They convert them into a kind of "floral acetone" This is the mechanism that creates overwhelming "wafting" aromas from certain mature roses. Have you experienced an incredible sweet wafting aroma from any of the roses you encountered in your rose growing life? I came across a New Dawn that wafted. It was sweet and fruity but it was something you caught in the air. Not overwhelming. A parent rose with maximum "floral acetone" making ability is what I am looking for. This trait is inheritable. We don't totally understand the inheritance probabilities based on recessive or dominant allele expression. But I need to hear what people say.

Thank you for any response

This trait is not climate or environmental-based, it is an inherent quality of the rose so make any suggestion that you have experienced. I have access to the lineage functions of HMF.

By far, the DA roses with the stongest "myrrh" fragrance I've grown are Fair Bianca, Cressida, and Tamora. The more recent Carding Mill has been pretty strongly "myrrh" in the 1.5 years I've grown it, but not like the previous three I mentioned.

I'm unable to find an online link for the article on rose scents that I mentioned above. It's the October 2010 Vintage Gardens Newsletter. The article was written by Gregg Lowery. Here is the Myrrh section:

@Rob SpiritStoneSilverRoses

Desdemona is so endearing, a real beauty - I have her poised in between two seats on my patio area, so she arguably occupies a key position in my garden. One our most lyrical bloggers on David Austin Roses is Darren Harwood, and he has this to say: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrWSOLb5zM4&t=2s

The Poet's Wife has hung her flower heads from the outset, charmingly some might say, but I don't find this trait a liking in the DA Roses tribe. I'll give her a couple more years to rid herself of such unwanted shyness. She only receives sun after midday - I've planted majority of my DA roses in partial shade in an attempt to delay any rapid fading, particiularly notable in the apricot group of DA Roses, and in many others too.

@Rob SpiritStoneSilverRoses

The only rose I'm aware of whose pervasive heady fragrance wafts around with gay abandon, is a mature bush of The Kazanlik Rose or Rosa x damascena 'Trigintipetala', which wouldn't win any prizes on the show bench, but knocks everything else out of the ballpark with its classic True Old Rose Scent. This rose flowers on old wood (and is extemely thorny, you have been warned).

The other Rose of Perfumery, Rosa x centifolia, 'Rose de Mai', cultivated in the Grasse region of Provence for the French Perfume Industry, might come close to what you are asking for here, with R. 'Fantin-Latour' being a representative and alluring example of the ancient Centifolia group. An exquisite classic rose. https://www.helpmefind.com/rose/pl.php?n=1948

Latterly, is has to be the very first of 'English' Roses, 'Constance Spry', which wafts down the lane behind my house, a walkway I share with my neighbours and friends who live down my road. Sharing your rose fragrances with other folk, who might be having a not-so-good day, is one of the pleasures of rose gardening, particularly with the tiny, younger tots, and then there's only one thing left to do: cut a few fragrant blooms for them to take home, or share at school with their friends.

@susan9santabarbara Thanks very much for taking time to add to the list. Yes, and there are even more descibed as "with notes of Myrrh", so-on, .. there appears to be a dash of sweet anise "Myrrh" passed down the lineage to so many in the David Austin Collection.

@User Thanks for the article insert. So clearly here, the author makes the error, perpetuated down the decades, of mistaking ancient bitter sepulchral 'true' Myrrh, with the sweet anise fragrance of the herb Sweet Cicely. "Love it or leave it ... Myrrh is here to stay". As we now know, it was never there in the first place!! To repeat the link to the description of the scent under the spotlight by the very 'nose' of the late David Austin himself (scroll down to the Myrrh bit) >>

https://storytellergarden.co.uk/roses/how-to-smell-roses/

True resinous Myrrh, the word, is derived from the Arabic for bitter >> Murr. For those who are unfamilar with the pearls of the resin as they exude from the Commiphora bush, the solid gum can be viewed in this interesting article, which, as a potent medicine, was found to be useful during the Covid-19 pandemic. Little wonder the 3 Magi of biblical times offered this precious resin as a gift at the birth of Christ all those years ago.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9672555/#:~:text=History%20of%20Commiphora%20myrrh&text=The%20term%20“Myrrh”%20was%20coined,et%20al.%2C%202017).

So what about the name Sweet Cicely, Myrrhis Odorata, which the UK foragers are calling "Garden Myrrh", and which I think is a more accurate description, if DA insist on keeping the romantic "Myrrh" tag to describe the scent profiles of their lovely roses. This article states that the word Myrrh in the case of Sweet Cicely, is a corruption of a Greek word "Myrizo" - to be seen in this link: https://www.foragingcoursecompany.co.uk/foraging-guide-sweet-cicely

But "Garden Myrrh" doesn't share the same glamorised or sentimentalised cachet as the genuine article. Arguably the "Myrrh of Gardens" gives the clarity I ask for.

Conclusion: Bitter Resin Myrrh and Sweet Garden Myrrh of David Austin Roses are contrasting and singular, and have been swapped around as though they are both freely transferable by many authorities over the years since the birth and launch of David Austin English Roses in 1961.

As I recall, Austin stated in one of the early books that the "Myrrh" scent in his roses was not thought of as an analog of the incense resin Myrrh, but related to the Anise-like family of "Myrrh" scents.

Thanks for you input Paul. So it begs the question: why not describe the key fragrance note of Constance Spry as authentic anise, or sweet licorice? Hardly top-selling specifications I would venture. And further: How does the company 'nose' describe Sweet Cicely itself? Myrrrh-like? No - "sweet anisic". Again not bankable! The company has gone to the trouble of splitting rose fragrance into 5 distinct modalities (Myrrh one of them) for us mortals to make a judgment as to whether the rose is for us, or not, if fragrance is a top priority in the decision making. (As in mine.) The DA catalogues could have offered a picture of Sweet Cicely for simplicity - but the "fragrant herb of ditches" is not going to sell roses either! It's clear that they have the vocabulary, so let's have it "Dans Le Nez".

Finally (frankly!) I would suggest that the sweet "Myrrh" scent of Constance Spry is much more akin to the sweeter redolence of Frankincense (I was burning the genuine article just last week), over and above its opposite number, as the rare gums journeyed cheek-by-jowl along the camel incense routes of antiquity.

@HU-309620285 Thank you so much for the topic. It puzzles me a lot and I have wanted but feel stupid to ask this question. Could Julia Child’s fragrance be classified as “Myrrh”? I feel it smells very similar, though much stronger, to Carding Mill. I personally do not like Myrrh scent very much, but much better than a scentless rose.

I can hardly smell anything on Graham Thomas yet, but my plants are still babies. Does Lady of Shallot also has Myrrh note? I mostly smell tea scent.

I like the old rose smell much better. On that Gertrude Jekyll and Evelyn are my favorate DA roses.

@forever_a_newbie_VA8

I have just started to grow 'Julia Child' which is sold as 'Absolutely Fabulous' over here in the UK. Its scent profile is described as a "distinctive liquorish fragrance", which would place the rose in the same category as 'Constance Spry', and therefore "sweet anise", "sweet licorice", but not 'Myrrrh" (the real bitter aromatic gum resin as I know it), as the genuine article was never there in the first place! The trouble is that everyone has copied the description, from other rose companies, to youtube bloggers, to learned journalists who have not done their homework. I don't know 'Carding Mill', and it might not be available from the current David Austin listings here in the Isles. I do like anise myself.

'Lady of Shalott' doesn't possess anything remotely like "sweet licorice" (to my sensitive nose). I have difficulty picking up anything from LOS, frankly - though the scent profile is described here as "fresh apple, with clove, and hints of tea". The strength is given as medium, and, to be totally upfront with regard to DA's descriptions, a light-medium strength means that I am going to be frustrated and disapponted. I would much rather a broader marking range, say 1 - 10 scale, or 1 - 5. Three out of ten I would give LOS for "tea", and that's being generous. On the other hand when I grew 'Graham Thomas', the tea note was quite pronounced, and I would rate that 7 out of 10. But scent profiles are going to vary on time of day, humidity, day temperature, position in the garden, air circulation, maturity of plant, geograhical zones, and the sensitivity of "Le Nez". So are they relevant? Whilst I'm not going to be too judgmental about the scent of DA's English Roses overall, I feel I've voiced enough words which conclude that we have been led a merry dance over the "Myrrh" issue for far too long.

I really dislike the "Myrrh" fragrance, except in a few instances like FAIR BIANCA & JULIA CHILD.

FAIR BIANCA is a runty, backward growing, uptight little shrub that produces prissy white flowers that I swear smells exactly like Noxzema. Somehow, the odd fragrance perfectly matches the blooms. But dang! It is an odd little thing.

JULIA CHILD is a robust, THORNY, Floribunda that constantly produces bright yellow, cupped blooms that fade off to cream. The French Chef herself chose this rose to bear her name, and it can't be a coincidence the blooms smell exactly like tarragon. I have three planted with my herbs because anywhere else it would stink to high heaven.

Other roses like THE PILGRIM have enough other scents in the fragrance makeup (in TP's case, Tea Rose) to mask that anise/licorice/medicine smell. I have a strict rule to always smell a myrrh scented rose before buying. Pure myrrh? PHEW!!!

I was most disappointed today. I saw a post on Houzz from 'HU' and was excited that you wrote more, but the writing style left me confused. There was no fanciness, no compound sentences, nor lyricality of any type. It is as flat of writing style as the flat dry sands of Amarillo. I re-read it a few times and decided to look up this 'HU' person in zone 6 - no information. After a little research about UK weather, I decided this could not possibly be The Writer HU. My heart actually sank a little for I do look forward to reading more from you.

I read this Myrrh post four times over the last couple of weeks and plan to come back to it again this weekend. I am severely lacking on research from the Biblical era and like to look up things mentioned in what I read. I apologize if my silence came off as lack of interest.

By any chance do you have a digital copy of "The World of Attar of Rose" that I may buy from you?

I don't really see how the topic would fit in the mold of a "coffee-table-browsing book." People don't generally peruse coffee-table-browsing books, they just flip through them to pass the time while waiting at a doctor's office. JK Rowling was turned away 27 times. Clearly, publishers are missing something.