![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijt0yFCTIwZ46mNO_8KE0B3GiL58sLL4UlnsqWRIo3XwcsqO_24cC5oXp1lpYuT3boI9oUP4ikV5LSE3v3gjaLQDOAQbKKcKjpB5isSQas55hStz00p79dpAn68czxib0SNr5Ma8Sqtgw/s320/comp+madame+curie+092011+%25285%2529.jpg)
I received this rose last fall as a free rose in a shipment from Rogue Valley Roses, and it went into my "Barden" bed along with a number of Paul Barden's Gallica creations. It was a fairly weak looking specimen and I knew it was a Hybrid Tea, just marginally hardy in this climate, so I coddled it all winter long with one of my then-new glass cloches. Through this hot dry summer, it struggled a bit, giving me a hint of a beautiful yellow bloom every once in awhile, but never appearing healthy until lately, as it sent up the two nice strong canes pictured below. I hope it has turned the corner for me.
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My yellow beauty here is named for the discoverer of radium and polonium, the widowed and famed Polish-French scientist Marie Curie. I remember reading as a boy about Madame Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel, and the the only woman to win in two fields, and the only person to win in multiple sciences. This rose obviously has a high standard to live up to. You need to be careful searching for this rose on the Internet, nowever. Enter only "Madame Curie" and "rose" and you get a 1997-vintage orange and pink floribunda of that name that is not nearly as attractive as the pure yellow of the older Hybrid Tea. I also found a white Japanese-bred climber named, in English, "Marie Curie IYC2011" that seems to be recently introduced. I suppose we'll someday need a brochure to separate the roses named for this icon of early 20th Century science. A collector's bed of roses named for Marie Curie, anyone?
(Got to run now. The younger version of Mrs. ProfessorRoush has just darted into the room, needing the family computer pronto. Can't a man blog in peace?)
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