Day One: Tour de Malakoff

As an experiment, I'm going to take a picture of a Tour de Malakoff rose and post it every day, based on this passage from Graham Stuart Thomas' The Old Shrub Roses:

The buds are shapely and the reverses of the petals are of light lilac-pink; in a half-open bloom, somewhat cupped and not of formal shape, vivid magenta may predominate, but when the flowers receive full sunshine and the petals reflex, some petals turn to intense parma violet with many intermediate shades.  Eventually, before falling, a cool lilac-grey assumes predominance over the 5-inch blooms, and a bunch of flowers of all tones is a startling revelation of what a rose can do.

The Tour de Malakoff was developed in 1856 and apparently named after a tower in Sebastopol that played some role in the Crimean War:   Tour Malakoff on Wikipedia.

In 1955, Will Tillotson said this about "Tour de Malakoff" in his "Roses of Yesterday and Today" catalog: 

One of the relatively few old roses we are continuing, even if it is not "ever-blooming."

And they continue to sell it today, which is how I was able to buy mine:

As a bonus picture, here is the common moss rose, also beginning to bloom:

About this rose, Will Tillotson says:

Great-great grandmother of all the Mosses, reported brought to England from Holland about 1596.  Blooms lavishly in spring and repeats generously throughout the summer.  Needs no verbosity from us.