Old postcards Roses

The Roses section is worth a look above all for its cultivar cards: many captions give not just “rose” but a cultivar name, sometimes with the garden group. The cards date from 1966 to 1985, and most of the named cultivars appear on cards from the 1970s.

The best-known rose here is the hybrid tea ‘Gloria Dei’ on a 1976 card. It was bred by the French horticulturist Francis Meilland in 1935–1939; Gloria Dei, Latin for “glory of God”, was its name in Germany, while in the United States it was called ‘Peace’, the name under which it became famous. Hybrid teas are the oldest class of modern garden roses: the first were raised in France in the mid-1800s, and their flowers are usually borne singly on long, straight stems.

A 1977 card is captioned Floribunda rose, cultivar ‘Charleston’. Floribundas were bred by crossing hybrid teas with polyantha roses, giving flowers that are usually smaller but carried in large sprays. Other named cultivars include ‘Lili Marleen’ (1974), ‘Wienerwald’ and ‘Meteor’ (both 1983).

The remaining vintage postcards of roses carry no cultivar name, from Roses (1966) to Rose (1985). These are scans of Soviet cards from those years, not later reprints.