Book published Mar 1998 by Evergreen/Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH.
ISBN: 3-8228-7761-1.

Authored by Eléonore Cruse

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Roses is a book about 130 old roses and species roses that were known before 1920, and some newer varieties that are the direct descendants of old roses, describing their special needs and the best ways to plant and prune them. The author, Eleonore Cruse, runs the rose gardens of Berty in the Ardeche area of France, where she has a collection of 550 old roses. She helped to draw up the French national inventory of roses and is a member of the jury for the international Bagatelle rose competition.

Roses is illustrated with some of the best, if not the best, photographs of roses ever published. Paul Starosta is not only a photographer but also a biologist. His twofold training has enabled him to develop a highly sophisticated technique of photography, with which he produces pictures of rare aesthetic quality that are also rich in botanical detail.

There is an overview of rose classes and history, and a practical guide which covers cultural considerations like soil and water requirements, diseases and pests, pruning and propagation.

Some of the varieties may be new to you, or ones that you had known about but had never seen. Particularly charming is the hybrid mutliflora, 'Violette', with its deep violet-purple flowers and golden stamens, and the striking Hybrid Musk, 'Queen of the Musks', with its red buds and pink-tinged, almost white flowers.

Roses is certainly not an exhaustive survey of old roses and species roses, it's nonetheless a valuable record of 130 of them.