Article (newspaper)  (Jun 2015)  Page(s) 2.  Includes photo(s).
 
Patricia Routley: In 2000 Natalee Kuser at Aunt Myrtles Garden Nursery in Bridgetown gave me a cutting-grown old rose which she found growing on the edge of the South West Highway, right alongside a tiny school shelter shed. More instructions on how to find the original plant were that there was a pullover (for the school bus) and the house set well back from the road, had a palm tree growing in the garden. With all those good directions I found the rose and I can well imagine the fresh roses that were picked in spring to take to the teacher. Having seen the original bush and how big it grew, my tiny rose was planted at the back of the new Tractor Track bed in a large and well amended hole. Alan Daubney had once dumped a tractor bucket full of cow manure there as a gift, and of course it grew like a rocket. Natalee and I both temporarily called it the “Date Palm Rose” as a distinctive study name.  
Five years later I was sent cuttings of another unknown rose under the study name of “Mackereth Cottage”. This one was planted perhaps 20 metres away to the west in the Rosary bed. It too grew well and made a big bush of about 2m x 2m. They are both prickly roses and flower only in spring. The big arching green canes are weighed down gracefully by the voluptuous blooms and were a clue to me that it might well be a centifolia rose or hybrid bourbon. Eventually it became clear that these foundlings were the 1845 Paul Ricault* ‘Paul Ricault’ was classified and reclassified so many times over the decades. It was said to be a bourbon, hybrid china, or a hybrid perpetual, but is possibly more likely to be a hybrid bourbon or a centifolia rose. It is a great big bush of a thing bred by M. Portemer in 1845 who bred bourbons, Hybrid Perpetuals and moss roses and lived just south of Paris. It is not known what ‘Paul Ricault’s parentage was, but a sign of china influence passed down via the bourbons, is visible in the red center line of stipules. A centifolia trait is shown in the quartered bloom and the abundance of straight and strong prickles. The foliage has a rather rough appearance and the end leaflets droop characteristically in the way of a centifolia. This rose sets no hips so there are no descendants. The fat, globular reddish bud has sepals that are fairly simple but widen slightly at the tips. There is a rough or prickly pedicel. The fragrant blooms open to a pink, 10cm rather flat and very double quartered bloom with petals that roll back on themselves. They are heavy and drooping and cupped so much that in maturity, the silver reverse of the petals are sometimes shown in photos. For this trait it has sometimes been referred to in correspondence as “the old silverback”. It is similar to ‘Mme. Isaac Periere’ but that bush repeats and ‘Paul Ricault’ flowers for four weeks in spring only. It may have been named for Sir Paul Ricaut, English diplomat and author who died 145 years earlier.

Newsletter  (May 2015)  Page(s) 23.  
 
[From "Suckering Roses Revisited", by Darrell g.h. Schramm, pp. 23-27]
The Centifolias, too, are all prone to suckering, including the hybrid ‘Paul Ricault’ (1845)

Website/Catalog  (27 Jul 2011)  
 
Rosa ‘Paul Ricault’
Classified by Graham S. Thomas as a Provence rose but with ‘signs of hybridity.’  Most Australian nurseries consider it to be a Hybrid Perpetual although it scarcely warrants this appellation as it is summer-flowering only.  Paul described it variously as a Hybrid Bourbon and Hybrid China and Rivers as a Hybrid Bourbon.  Paul Ricault was a prominent rose fancier from Falkirk in Scotland and regular writer on the subject of roses in the pages of the The Gardeners’ Chronicle and elsewhere.  ‘Paul Ricault’ has large, very double crimson-pink or bright carmine flowers.  According to The Gardeners’ Chronicle of 1857 ‘a most hardy rose for size, shape, colour, very lasting and beautiful in a pot or exhibition’.  [Paul (1888, 1903), Rivers (1854, 1857, 1863)].
  
Horticultural & Botanical History
Introduced in 1845.  In the first great National Rose show held in July 1858, ‘Paul Ricault’ was listed amongst the roses appearing in multiple (6) winning collections.  [Gard. Chron. 1858].
 
History at Camden Park
Included in a handwritten list of roses dated 1861, probably intended for a new edition of the catalogue that was never printed.  [MP A2943].

Book  (2011)  Page(s) 99.  Includes photo(s).
 
Phillip Robinson standing in front of The Crepe Rose (photo by Gregg Lowery).

Book  (Feb 2009)  Page(s) 83.  
 
‘Paul Ricault’: Les Hybrides Remontants. Parents: Origines non connues. Obtenteur: Portemer 1845. Description et conseils.

p82 Photo.

Magazine  (2007)  Page(s) 28. Vol 29, No. 3..  
 
Margaret Furness & Pat Toolan, SA. Some Roses in SA through Californian Eyes:
We were eager to see whether Phillip Robinson and Gregg Lowery would recognize any of our foundling roses…the "Mackereth Cottage Rose" (now eradicated from that site) / "Mylor Blacksmith's Cottage Rose" is the same as the US foundling given the study name "Crepe Rose" by Joyce Demits.

Article (magazine)  (2006)  Page(s) 72.  
 
ʻPaul Ricaultʼ, apportioned to the Centifolias (Beales et al., 1998; Cairns, 2000) or to the Bourbons (Dickerson, 1992), did not cluster with Centifolia accessions. [but closer to 'Baronne Prevost']

Book  (2000)  Page(s) 27.  
 
Crepe Rose Hch. No rebloom. Outstanding fragrance. Habit [diagram 1]. Levet, 1870. [Robinson collected]. Luxurious raspberry-pink blooms, very large and globular, the petals beautifully imbricated, with a fruity Damask fragrance. Whether this variety is correctly identified is a hotly debated topic.

Book  (1996)  Page(s) 108.  Includes photo(s).
 
Paul Ricault. Shrub rose (Centifolia). Portemer, France 1845. Parentage unknown.
‘Paul Ricault’ has an identity problem. To begin with nobody knows who his parents were. And, as if that were not bad enough, the experts disagree entirely as to which race he belongs to. Some of them refer to him as a Bourbon, some as a Centifolia. Peter Beales, in his wonderfully informative book Classic Roses, lists him among the Hybrid Perpetuals. But since with all things to do with the rose Graham Thomas is my final authority, and he in his scholarly work The Old Shrub Roses includes ‘Paul Ricault’ in his chapter on the Centifolias, I feel compelled as usual to adhere to the procedure I have adopted throughout and follow his lead. Perhaps, as has often been suggested, ‘Paul Ricault’ is a cross between a Bourbon and a Centifolia. However we decide to categorise him, there will be little dispute about the fact that he is a very fine rose indeed. I have planted him in the little garden we have devoted entirely to the Centifolias, the old French roses, the Cabbage Roses - whichever affectionate name you prefer. Here he grows on top of a stone retaining wall, his long canes hanging down over the wall. Behind him is an old apple tree, retained for its flowers not for its fruit which is decidedly ordinary. ‘Paul Ricault’ has sent long canes up into the tree which he shares with a pale pinkish-mauve clematis. I think it is ‘Lady Londesborough’. If we are lucky they flower at the same time. There is an air of flamboyance and affluence about ‘Paul Ricault’. His flowers are very large, very full and many petalled (as we expect of a Centifolia), very flat and quartered and a wonderful glowing shade of deep rich pink. And the scent is superb. We grow a pale pink dianthus called ‘Beatrix’ along the top of the stone wall and the combined scent of the rose and the dianthus on a warm evening makes this a favourite place to sit. ‘Paul Ricault’ blooms for about a month, usually starting towards the end of November. It is fortunate that the apple tree is there, for the weight of the flowers is such that he really does need some sort of support. His long canes can also be successfully pinned down and this tends to increase the flowering. The foliage is unremarkable - smooth dark green and relatively few thorns. Like most of the old shrub roses, ‘Paul Ricault’ is hardy. He asks for little attention apart from the removal of dead wood and a light shaping in winter. If, every few years, the older canes are shortened the plant will send up new ones from the base. Released by Portemer from his nursery in Gentilly near Paris in 1845, ‘Paul Ricault’ must have been an instant success for he quickly found his way to the far corners of the earth. Nancy Steen found him growing in old gardens in New Zealand. I have found him among the tombstones and long grass of old cemeteries in Victoria. And as early as 1858 records show that he was already established in the Royal Botanic Gardens at the Cape of Good Hope.

Book  (1996)  Page(s) 105.  
 
Paul Ricault. Portemer. France 1845. Hybrid Perpetual. Pink. (Available from) Cottage, Galore, Golden Vale, Gretchen, Hedgerow, Honeysuckle, Thomas.