Centifolia Roses ( Tetraploid )(also called Cabbage Rose, Holland Rose, Rose des Peintres, or Provence Rose). The original Centifolia roses probably appeared around the end of the sixteenth century, from a cross between the Autumn Damask and an Alba. They make large, rather floppy bushes with very double flowers hanging on weak branches. A single or semi-double sport arose in the early nineteenth century, before which the group was sterile and the early varieties grown were all sports from the original cross. They are once-flowering on shrubs that tend to be large and a bit spindly, with sharp canes and sparse foliage. It is a large rose, sweet-scented, of a pink or pale rose-purple colour, the petals whitish towards the base. Its branches are covered with numerous nearly straight spines: the petioles and peduncles are nearly unarmed, but more or less clothed with glandular bristles and the leaves have five or sometimes seven ovate, glandular leaflets, softly hairy beneath. This hybrid and its varieties have given rise to innumerable handsome garden roses.