R. × reclinata is the name given by Thory in 1824 to the Boursault rose, figured in Redouté, Les Roses (Vol. III, p. 80, t.); also portrayed, on the previous plate is another rose, received from the nurseryman Cugnot, from which the Boursault rose is said to have been raised. As described, the latter is a sparsely armed climber bearing semi-double purplish pink flowers in clusters at the ends of long branchlets, the individual flowers nodding in the bud-stage, whence the epithet reclinata. Receptacle globose. Leaves glabrous, glossy, with three to seven leaflets. The other rose, from which the Boursault was said to have been raised, was identical according to Thory, except in having single flowers. He supposed these two roses to be hybrids between R. indica (chinensis) and R. alpina (pendulina).
This parentage is also suggested by Thory for the rose he named R. lheritieranea (for the French botanist L’Héritier), which is figured by Redouté in the same volume (p. 21, t.). This had been raised by Vilmorin about 1812 from seed of “R. indica”, and seems to have been very similar.
The Boursault rose, and perhaps Vilmorin’s hybrid, gave rise to a small group of climbing roses called the Boursault roses, most of which, like the original parents, have disappeared from cultivation. See further on p. 161.
Whether R. pendulina really enters into the parentage of the original Boursault, or of ‘Lheritieranea’ is rather doubtful. The first to question Thory’s suggestion was his contemporary Seringe, who thought R. indica × R. fraxinifolia [blanda] as more likely for the former, and actually placed the latter under R. fraxinifolia as a variety.