Three cheers for Antique Rose Emporium, who accept cuttings of unknown roses, roses nobody any longer knows the name of, and either identifies them or gives them a study name, and sends them out again into commerce. This is a big deal! Somewhere, one of your Holiday roses is blooming it heart out in somebody's backyard, and nobody knows its name, or that its rare or extinct. Extinct probably means that all the commercial establishments quit carrying it to make room for some newer variety. All roses are beautiful, tho, and I am thankful that we have so many old ones in commerce and trade. Good luck with your hunt.
Jeanine

Jeanine - I have done some saving myself and have some old garden roses because I got cuttings and grew them. I read somewhere that there are over 200 new roses introduced each year, no wonder many get dropped. Too bad if you not the popular one, then you might not get saved and are lost forever.
clare

The same thing is going on with vegetables like melons beans and tomatoes in specific. A great organization called Seed Savers Exchange helps preserve all these old open-pollinated types from becoming extinct.
The watermelon Moon and Stars was thought to be extinct until an old farmer contacted the right people and said it was growing in his garden. They went out, saw it to be true and the strain was saved. It is now available commercially again through some seed companies.
Let us hope the same for some of these 'lost' roses.

We dont even know how many have been lost. A few years ago, Dr. Griffith Buck's daughter was seeking cuttings of some of her father's roses that are now believed to be lost. She found a few thanks to people who were still growinig the varieties, but I think there were more than a few that haven't been found.

For modern varieties, if the vendor isn't getting sales, then they stop producing those varieties and move on to newer ones. Doen't matter that the older variety might "stand the test of time" better than the newer. The nurseries don't have time to wait. Fortunately, there seems to be a resurgence of collectors and vendors who are setting out to save many roses, especially the older varieties.

There are also a lot of roses that are "found" (variety name is unknown), and many people are trying to preserve those varieties and trace back the lineage.

Also, some varieties are just difficult to propagate. And it is expensive to do budding (grafting). So many of the large-scale nurseries will stick with those that they know can be produced as a large enough scale to satisfy local garden centers and mail/online vendors, and that will sell.

diane nj - Sad to think how many beautiful roses have been lost forever. And it all comes down to the bottom line. If they don't sell, they are out of there.
Clare