Where did The Yellow Rose of Texas get its roots?

Driving around our small rural towns, you will notice a yellow shrub rose. This yellow shrub rose has many names such as Pioneer Rose, Oregon Trail Rose, The Yellow Rose of Texas, Yellow Hogg’s Rose and Yellow Sweet Brier. Some of the locals here have called it Traveler’s Rose or Settler’s Rose who have had the rose on their farm or homestead through the decades. And that’s just a few of its names, but a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, right? Its real name is Harison’s Yellow rose.

This was the first rose of its color in this country. This rose has traveled the country from east to west and back again. In the 1800s, Richard and George Harison were amateur rosarians and kept a rose garden at their home in Manhattan, New York, and on their estate Mount Sinai in a semirural area. Today, Eighth and Ninth avenues between 30th and 31st streets are now what was once their garden. The Harison brothers kept Persian Yellow (Rose foetida) and Scotch Briar (Rose spinosissima) in their garden. The parentage is still uncertain, but most agree that this must have been a chance hybridization between the Persian Yellow and Scotch Briar growing in Harison’s garden.

After being discovered in Manhattan, it was to be given to several nurserymen. Two of the nurserymen were Thomas Hogg and Williams Nursery. Some accounts say it was marketed in 1830, while others say it went on sale in 1835 at the Prince Nursery in Fleming, New York, called Harison’s Yellow.

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