''Rosa'' Violet Carson is a salmon-pink

rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

cultivar A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture ...

, an uncommon hybrid of the red hybrid tea 'Mme Léon Cuny' (Gaujard, 1955) and the orange floribunda 'Spartan' (Boerner, 1955), created by Samuel McGredy IV between 1963 and 1964. It was named after the English

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

Violet Carson Violet Helen Carson, OBE (1 September 1898 – 26 December 1983) was a British actress of radio, stage and television, and a singer and pianist, who had a long and celebrated career as an actress and performer during the early days of BBC Rad ...

(1898–1983), who played

Ena Sharples Ena Sharples (née Schofield) is a fictional character from the British ITV soap opera ''Coronation Street'', played by Violet Carson. She appeared in the first-ever episode, broadcast on 9 December 1960, and stayed with the show until 2 April ...

in the British

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

'' Coronation Street''. The dense semi-double flowers reach an average diameter of , with up to 35 petals, and appear in loose clusters of 3 to 15 in flushes throughout the season. They have a mild to strong, sweet musk fragrance and an elegant bloom form, with outer petals that bend decoratively outwards. Their colour ranges from a blush to strong pink with a cream centre and a reverse described as lemony or silvery in young flowers that changes to pink and white in mature petals. The compact bushy shrub grows 0.75 to 1.5 metres (2.5 to 5 feet) high and about wide. The young shoots are crimson with reddish purple new foliage that turns to a glossy slightly blue dark green. 'Violet Carson' is (almost) thornless, rain tolerant and winter hardy down to −23 °C (

USDA zone A hardiness zone is a geographic area defined as having a certain average annual minimum temperature, a factor relevant to the survival of many plants. In some systems other statistics are included in the calculations. The original and most wide ...

6). The flower has been notably featured in the graphic novel ''

V for Vendetta ''V for Vendetta'' is a British graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd (with additional art by Tony Weare). Initially published between 1982 and 1985 in black and white as an ongoing serial in the British anthol ...

'', but in the movie version is renamed to the fictitious "Scarlet Carson", which Ruth grows for her partner (Valerie), and V grows during his imprisonment in the Larkhill Resettlement Camp. They were portrayed in the film by red 'Grand Prix' roses.V for Vendetta production notes ''in'' V for Vendetta DVD and Blue-ray editions. Accessed February 17th.

References

{{Rose, state=collapsed