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Just casually found a young (but very vigorously growing and nearly fully blooming) plant of James Oak at a local dealer in downtown Genoa (Italy). I already saw pictures of this new variety, but wasn't nearly as impressed as I was when I saw it in person. Believe me, this rose is an absolute stunner.
It's form is like a big, full, perfectly formed rosette, somewhat smaller on certain lateral buds. I'd describe it as a morphing of Charles de Mills and an older Austin rose (Gertrude Jelyll?), or maybe as a giant and fuller Rose de Resht. Never seen such a flower form in an Austin rose before, and all buds has unfolded perfectly so far.
Its colour is strongly reminiscent of
old Austin's Othello to me, including the yellow insertion of petals, but it beautifully fades to lilac pink on external border, like some old Gallica hybrids.
And the fragrance... it would be enough to buy this rose. A very powerful Bourbon smell (Mme Isaac Pereire), with some fine Gallica aroma and some ripe raspberry. Absolutely mouthwatering.
At the dealer, I had approached these flowers very skeptically, anticipating a very likely delusion (imagining that it's not possible for such a beautiful rose to have also a beautiful fragrance LOL), expecting a slight unpleasant tea/meaty smell like Pierre de Ronsard or some other modern shrub roses, or at best an almost undetectable rose fragrance... Instead, I put my nose into one of the most powerfully and beautifully fragrant roses I ever smelled! It was already mine. Decision taken in 0,1 sec.
P.S. I'd be not surprised at all if Othello would turn out being in its genealogy.
Update: after about one month and half, it turns out being as beautiful as ever, as powerfully and yummly fragrant as ever, pretty fast to rebloom, and vigorously sprouting from graft zone... but it also turns out being somewhat prone to blackspotting on older foliage (luckily, she gets new leaves in no time).
Nobody's perfect.
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