There is much confusion and incorrect information surrounding the birth of the Hybrid Tea. For many years “La France” has been cited as the first Hybrid Tea. This rose was introduced in 1867 and consequently this year was officially designated the beginning of the ‘Modern Rose’ era. However the confusion arises because throughout the 1800’s it was the practice for breeders to recognize only the seed parent when classifying a seedling. The pollen parent was not taken into account for two reasons, firstly deliberate crosses were generally not made until the late 1860’s so most roses of that era were natural crosses. Therefore the pollen parent was unknown.Furthermore it was believed that the pollen parent played little part in the outcome in the breeding of a new variety. If a new variety was significantly different from the seed parent then the word ‘hybrid’ was used as in ‘Hybrid China’ or ‘Hybrid Bourbon’.

A recent retrospective study has led to many roses being reclassified. As the Hybid Perpetuals preceded the Hybrid Teas, some which were
designated as Hybrid Perpetuals are now classified as Hybrid Teas ‘Frau Karl Druschki’ for instance.
Many other rose varieties have also been reclassified.

According to Krussman (The Complete Book of Roses) the first Hybrid Tea was ‘Brown’s Superb Blush’ released in 1815.
The parentage of this rose was given as ‘Humes Blush Tea-scented China’ and probably a Gallica as it was non-recurrent.

Others released after this date include...
‘Duc de Choiseul’ 1825,
‘Smith’s Yellow’ 1833
‘Gloire de Dijon’ 1853
‘Victor Verdier’ 1859

‘Jaune Deprez’ 1826, and ‘Lamarque’ 1830 in these two varieties ‘Parks Yellow Tea-scented China’ was the pollen parent with the original Noisette rose as the seed parent. The original Noisette roses were self sterile and therefore produced no true to type descendants.
So in fact both ‘Jaune Deprez’ and ‘Lamarque’ are Hybrid Teas. Their descendants are also Hybrid teas- ‘Chromatella’, ‘Marechal Neil’, ‘William Allen Richardson’, ‘Alister Stella Gray’etc.

Now we come to ‘La France’ 1867-so you can see that whilst at the time it was recognised as the first Hybrid Tea it was far from it. ‘La France’ was released by Guillot of France and he has been quoted as saying that it was a chance seedling in a bed of Tea roses.
However in some rose literature the parentage is given as ‘Mme Victor Verdier’ x ‘Mme Bravy’ which maybe an educated guess? With the release of ‘Mme Caroline Testout’ in 1890,the classification of Hybrid Tea came into general use.