A discussions of roses is like a tapestry that has many colored threads of many diffferent materials. The cultivation of roses most certainly started in China thousands of years ago. As China was explored by Europeans and Americans the art of rose cultivation spread and there were parallel efforts to create many different characteristics in roses such as fragrence,blooming, size, climbing, compactness, etc.The question often times is what kind of rose do i have. Hmmm good question. I am going to try to give a simple overview of growing roses.

The first thing is what kind of rose and what it is named is really unimportant because 'a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet' What classification and name we use is helpful when you want to buy or sell a rose or have a problem with your roses. I will try to flesh out the rose taxonomy.This effort will be very incomplete at first and as i have more concise ideas i will continue to add to what i have.
Species roses from China, Europe, the Himalyas and North America. The well known species are moschata or musk rose from Europe, which had been confused with brunonii, the himalayan musk rose. Moschata is a parent for the noisettes and the hybrid teas. Another European rose, rosa foetida bicolor or as i tried to grow it the Austrian Copper is a parent of hybrid teas and does terrible in texas because of its susceptibility to black spot. It was the parent that contributed oranges and yellows into the rose pallete there is an iris foetida that is named for its pungent smell. I don't get it neither of these smell fetid to me. Another rose that contributes yellow and is also difficult to gow outside its range is the Sulphur rose, rosa hemisphaerica, either the double or single form is difficult to grow because of its middle eastern origins. It is very similar to many bulbs from these regions of Afghanistan and the Kopet Dag a high elevation dry region where many plants need dormancy and no humidity.