The Loyalist Rose

(Maiden's Blush-Rosa Alba family)

  Antique rose-as early as 1557

Petals-pale flesh pink

3" across and fully double

strong, sweet fragrance

withstands disease and cold well

7'x 5' graceful arching shrub

This rose arrived in England from Damascus during the Crusades.

It was brought to the Estate of Sir William Johnson in the Mohawk Valley, Western New York in 1733 by John Cameron of Clunes and Mary Cameron of Glen Nevis.

After the American Revolution, a root of the rose was taken with the family to Cornwall, Ontario.

Maiden's Blush still grows today in the Ottawa Valley. Medicines and teas were made from it.

Ethel MacLeod, a descendent, registered The Loyalist Rose with the International Registration Authority for Roses.  To mark the coming of the Loyalists to Canada and the Bi-centennial of the American Revolution, she donated it to the United Empire Loyalists' of Canada.

This famous rose appears in Botticelli's painting, "Birth of Venus"

Click on thumbnail picture to see the roses!