Left - Rosa 'Double Delight ' & Rosa 'Mary Magdalene' 10 September 2025

 

Scent has been important in my life. As a boy I can remember the scent of my father which was a combination of a lavender aftershave, his Player’s Navy Cut cigarettes and his Old Smuggler Argentine Scotch.

My mother often told me (she taught me to smell behind the ears) that I had the smell of an Englishman. She also told me that when she would deplane in the US the smell was of French fries. In Mexico the smell was of tortillas.

I can still remember the sweet smell of my Rosemary. She stopped using perfume but there was something there, behind her ears.

While at my now advanced age of 83 I am quickly losing my sense of taste my nose is as good as ever. Today I cut these two blooms of very fragrant roses. Double Delight smells like candy and Mary Magdalene has the complex smell that the English call myrrh. It is a combination of Pernod, Magnolia grandiflora, and some other addition that is slightly medicinal. Most of the members of the Vancouver Rose Society do not like the scent. My opinion is that you must be a snob to really appreciate that myrrh.

I am a snob as was my Rosemary.

Rosa 'Mary Magdalene' - 8 September 2025

Ruminating this morning I was thinking about the name Mary and in particular that of María in Spanish.

My grandmother was called María de Los Dolores Reyes de Irureta Goyena. Her first name was shortened to Dolores and further to Lolita which is the diminutive of the last syllable of Dolores.

I want to explain here that in Spanish there are no plain Marys. The Marys with the longest possible name are either Santa María del Perpetuo Socorro or worse Santa María de la Inmaculada Concepcíon. Thus any Mexican woman called Lupe is really Santa María de Guadalupe.

I have figured out that there are two exceptions. One of them I illustrate with my fragrant English Rose, Rosa ‘Mary Magdalene’.  English originator of the rose David Austin I am sure knew what he was doing as the rose emerges pink (Magdalene the harlot) and in a few days changes to white (Magdalene the saint).

The other Mary is Mary Nobody a João Gilberto song.

Of further interest is the problem that Marías de la Inmaculada Concepcíon have when they travel to Argentina. These Marys are usually called Concepcíon and more often than that with the diminutive Conchita. We do know that Linnaeus identified the sexual parts of a conch with that of human women. In Argentina concha and conchita are what women have down there that men don’t.   

My favourite version of Maria Ninguém (and Rosemary's) is by handsome Carlos Lyra