Thank you, Niels. You made my day. Before I read your post, I actually looked the rose up on HMF.:-)

Masha

That's hilarious! I might have that rose....

Color? Scent? Repeat? Thorns?

Oh Masha you did? I am impatiently waiting for the roses to begin to bloom ... well some are already blooming but they are not nearly as interesting as this rose!

You do Thonotorose??? I have heard that the scent of this rose forms the heartnote of the Dior Ladies perfume: POISON. The only picture I have been able to find of the rose is this one:

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'Souvenir de Mme. Drama Queen' (1837) has been shown to be identical with the orange floribunda 'Splash O' Sunshine' (Wyant, 1951). The SdMDQ of commerce was found by Jeri Jennings in a Placerville cemetery and misidentified by her on the basis of a 1962 Sangerhausen catalogue. This rose has nothing in common with the "real" SdMDQ. It turns out that the Communist bureaucrats had been randomly switching variety markers across the Rosarium to alleviate boredom, or perhaps as a protest against the lack of consumer goods in East Germany. The "real" SdMDQ has perhaps been lost, as it was reputed in the 19th century to be a difficult and temperamental rose. Also, it is suspected that "Splash O' Sunshine' may be the same as the lost floribunda 'Hedda Poulsen' (1932), perhaps falsely re-registered by Wyant. If so, that would account for a similar rose being described at Sangerhausen.

I discuss 'SOS' in my article "Trailer-Trash Roses," forthcoming in The Rose Connoisseur, Fall, 2009.

Hope this helps.

Cupshaped--

The correct photo is the one in the lower right. The others are imposters imported by Beales from various continental sources, but later repudiated by him. (By "correct," I mean 'Splash O' Sunshine' or 'Hedda Poulsen,' not, of course SdMDQ.)

Thank you for providing additional information about this obscure rose Michael! It explains a lot why there is so much confusion and mystery surrounding this rose. But the puzzle pieces are coming together.

I can´t wait to read about SOS in your article "Trailer-Trash Roses," forthcoming in The Rose Connoisseur, Fall, 2009!!

Yes I am also appalled by reading that some people stoop so low that they steal roses from cemetaries!!! The financial crisis is getting worse it seems! Me and my pets are trying to raise funds to be able to afford some SDMDQs - so far my cat seems to be a very affective fundraiser - perhaps you can use the picture of us in your article about trailer trash roses?

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Masha, if you had trouble finding information, HMF and some other sources list her as 'Reine des Actrises.'

Neils, which is worse, stealing roses from cemeteries, or killing cats to attract sympathy?

Niels, I've been growing this lovely rose for slightly less than 10 years and I'm afraid that might disqualify me, but I hope you'll overlook this minor defect. She's reputed to be a sport from Mlle. Hedda Kledderstump, although this has been hotly (and in my estimation) wrongly disputed from a usually knowledgeable rosarian from Blsk. I think the coloration is somewhat misleading in his frigid climate zone. I don't belong to a royal rose society (the only royalty we have here is Her Serene Highness Courtney Love and Princess-in-Waiting Lindsey Lohan). However, I do boast of a Ph of 20,000 and am eagerly waiting to hear from the Guiness Book of Soil Records. I believe I've got that category sewed up.

I do want to point out that michaelg's little article in Trailer Trash has been shamelessly borrowed from my work "The Alliterative Insinuations of Spurious Allegations Regarding Splash O'Sunshine's Purported Transmorgification of SdmDQ. It's a feeble effort on his part but I'm afraid some less astute rosarions may be taken in by his cleverly worded ruse.

I hope I've cleared up any little misconceptions that may have crept into the TRUE origns of said rose. I don't quite have the aphid population in the desired range but believe me when I say I'm working at this non-stop. The grasshopper population is veering nicely toward prescribed levels and I believe I will soon meet most if not all your criteria.

Sincerely,

Ingrid (published author of many, many articles in many journals other than Trailer Trash)

Oh THAT rose . . . You should have posted the pictorial right away, Cupshaped. I must inform you that your info regarding 4 different roses being illustrated is incorrect. It's ONE variety only that is pictured above. On this side of the Atlantic the rose officially carries the name 'Andy Warhol'. It had its 15 minutes of fame some time ago, but is still quite revered among the rose avant-garde. The only thing royal about that particular niche of society is that its members tend, collectively, to be a royal pain in the a**. About all they have to do these days is focus on providing for the bizarre & demanding cultural preferences of their favorite flower.

The 'Compendium of Social Climbing, Snobbery and Other Effete Pursuits', Vol VII, 3rd edition notes with a degree of alarm that, sadly, Rosa 'Andy Warhol' (aka SdMDQ) cannot be used in rose breeding programs because of sterility issues, and can be propagated (with utmost difficulty) only via asexual methods.

think I used to have that rose and I shovel pruned it.

I have this rose, too. Last season I crossed it with Reine des Violettes. One seedling shows great promise, and I'm thinking of registering it as Souvenir de la Reine des Drama Queens.

I thought I ordered this from from a small nursery in Slovenia near Valdotra but instead recieved the very troublesome Petite Reticule a bourbon named in Honor of Queen Victorias bombazine reticule. It was a sport of Souvenir de Charlotte Corday.

Thanks (she says slapping her forehead in disbelief that she might have even looked for this rose in an old Sears-Roebuck catalogue), we needed this, especially me, who has suffered the loss of a whole garden full of similar roses....on that dreadful M.D. rootstock from that P&J company.