DETAIL'Rosa Rugosa'
oil on canvas
150 x150mm each
Gwen Fagan in her book 'Roses at the Cape of Good Hope' describes the Rosa Rugosa flowers, fruit and foliage : 'The large round buds open into mauve-pink floppy, single flowers 8cm in diameter, with crinkled petals surrounding a mass of prominent yellow stamens......the shiny round hips are large and of a bright cherry-red colour' and the plant has 'mint-like fleshy leaves'.
The rose is native to N.E. Asia, North China, Korea and Japan. It was said to introduced into Europe from 1796 onwards.
In the Eastern Cape of South Africa, the Rugosa plant was popular in the 1900s as both specimen and hedge plants.
The rose specimens for these small oil paintings were picked from a hedge in County Kilkenny, Ireland
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