The Charleston Horticultural Society and The Preservation Society of Charleston are pleased to partner and promote Noisette Roses: 19th Century Charleston's Gift to the World.  This is the first book to be published in America that is solely dedicated to an analysis of the Noisettes, a class of roses born in Charleston, SC not long after the American Revolution.  Ms. Ruth Knopf, South Carolina native and book contributor, is one of the most knowledgeable rose experts in the country.  She will be signing copies of this book on Saturday, April 18 from 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m., at 147 King Street (corner of King & Queen Streets). 

Jane Waring, Charleston Horticultural Society Publications Chairman, notes "Our challenge was to tell the story of this unique botanical contribution in a manner that would appeal to a wide audience - lovers of old roses and gardeners worldwide as well as Southern history buffs, admirers of historical Southern gardens, and the tourists who flock to Charleston to enjoy its beauty."

HISTORICAL INFORMATION:  Developed by John Champneys at his plantation south of Charleston, 'Champneys' Pink Cluster was a hybrid of 'Old Blush' (Rosa chinensis) and the 'Musk Rose' (Rosa moschata). This vigorous rose with its white single or double flowers was the first rose in the western world to be truly remontant, or ever-blooming and was the ancestor of the class of roses called the Noisettes.  Philippe Noisette arrived in Charleston in 1795 and by 1808 was the director of the Charleston Botanical Society. By 1814 Noisette was a successful nurseryman with land on Charleston Neck along present day Rutledge Avenue. In 1914 he sent a rose specimen to his brother Louis Claude, a nurseryman in France, where the appreciation of this type of rose was intense. This class of rose was named after Philippe Noisette when Pierre Claude Redoute, a famous flower painter of the nineteenth century, painted the rose and named it Rosa Noisettiana and Rosier de Philippe Noisette. The image was reproduced and the name Noisette became well known.

CO-AUTHORS:  This select group includes historian John Meffert on what Charleston was like in the early nineteenth century when John Champneys bred the first Noisette;  the late C. Patton Hash on the history of Champneys and his Noisette rose; rose nurseryman Gregg Lowery on the Old Noisettes and the promise they offered amateur gardeners and breeders alike in the nineteenth century; Ruth Knopf on her search for the old Old Noisettes, Malcom Manners on the genetic make up of the Noisette, Odile Masquelier, president of Association des Rose Anciennes en France and City of Charleston horticulturist, JoAnn Breland, who lovingly oversees Charleston's Hampton Park and the Noisette Study Garden.

Charleston Horticultural Society is deeply grateful to the Heritage Rose Foundation for a grant to underwrite a portion of the printing which enables the Charleston Horticultural Society to offer the sale of the book at a modest price of $17 each.  To order a signed copy, http://www.preservationsociety.org/shop_detail.asp?storeID=509