Rose by Any Name

Three years ago, a favorite old rose, Jacques Cartier, was officially renamed, but before you change the name tag on yours, think twice. Today some expert rosarians are having second thoughts.

Jacques Cartier is a lovely old French rose that many of us cherish for its fragrance and its profusion of light-pink blooms. Its prickly ugly-duckling buds open into beautiful many-petaled pompon flowers that rosarian Graham Thomas described as having “that high-shouldered look.”