The MGS Forum

Plant identification => Plant identification => Topic started by: Charithea on August 11, 2014, 12:56:59 PM

Title: Malia rose ID'd by Trevor as Pierre de Ronsard
Post by: Charithea on August 11, 2014, 12:56:59 PM
The photos below we're taken in Spring,in  Malia Village in the foothills of Toodos Mountain. The owner of the garden, Kyria Chrystalla,  told me that her father had planted it many years ago and the name given was έρωτας meaning love (όχι αγάπη). I promised to have it identified for her so please help. Thank you
Title: Re: Malia rose
Post by: Trevor Australis on August 12, 2014, 12:19:30 AM
It looks much like PIERRE de RONSARD to me.
Title: Re: Malia rose
Post by: Charithea on August 12, 2014, 04:56:26 AM
Hello Trevor. Thank you for the quick response. I will inform the lady about the name. She knows all about the forum but feels reluctant to use it because her English is limited.Charithea
Title: Re: Malia rose
Post by: Caroline on August 12, 2014, 07:26:46 AM
And there is a connection with love in that Pierre de Ronsard was a 16th century French poet who wrote love poems.  Probably the most famous lines are as follows:

Quand vous serez bien vieille, au soir à la chandelle,
Assise auprès du feu, dévidant et filant,
Direz, chantant mes vers, en vous émerveillant,
Ronsard me célébrait du temps que j'étais belle.

(When you are very old and sit at evening besides the fire, by candlelight, carding and spinning, you will say with wonder, as you recite my verses: "Ronsard sang of me in the time when I was fair").

A bit off topic, I know, but it might add to the enjoyment of the owner of the garden  :)
Title: Re: Malia rose ID'd by Trevor as Pierre de Ronsard
Post by: Alisdair on August 12, 2014, 11:08:28 AM
Very nice, Caroline!
Pierre de Ronsard seems particularly popular in South Australia and Victoria, where we saw it quite often during the 2012 MGS AGM there. This was a specially fine example in Aaron Penley and Graham Butler's beautiful garden of Willowsporn in the Barossa Valley.
Title: Re: Malia rose ID'd by Trevor as Pierre de Ronsard
Post by: Charithea on August 14, 2014, 06:17:50 PM
Hello Caroline. Thanks for the poem. I have informed the lady who guided us to rose garden. She is herself a French speaker and knows the poet's work. She will translate the poem for Chrystalla. There are love poems written in the Cypriot dialect and they compare the ladies beauties to jasmines, delicate basil and wormwood.