I am not sure I am in the right place, if not please point me to where I need to be. I found this rose at an old cemetery can anyone ID it for me.

Veilenchenblau comes to mind as it has flowers like that and is almost thornless. It is a rambler however. Is it possible that your plant has been cut back?

I agree. It looks like a sheared-back Veilchenblau.

Rambling Rose (Rosa 'Veilchenblau')

you folks are great I am positive that is it.

How large are the blooms. This COULD be Veilchenblau, but finding it in a cemetery makes me lean toward it being IXl (IXLR) a rootstock plant bred from Tausendschoen and Veilchenblau.

Here, we found it on a 1955 grave.

http://helpmefind.com/gardenin...

The color and foliage look quite different to me, but the logic behind it makes perfect sense.

I agree that it's most likely 'Veilchenblau', but didn't weigh-in because there wasn't another possibility mentioned. Jeri's reasoning is sound, and finding the various rootstocks "growing wild" does point to the likelihood that there once was a budded rose planted there, but that doesn't eliminate 'Veilchenblau' since it, too, was once used as rootstock, as were several other ramblers. Even my 'Baltimore Belle' has references pointing to it being used as such. I also recall 'Felicite et Perpetue' being praised as rootstock in a 19th Century reference. Back when there were far more small producers of roses, what was used as rootstock could be almost anything that rooted easily and grew vigorously. So, if you happen upon a rambler growing all but forgotten for a very long time in a space that "doesn't make sense" for a rambler, it could very well have been rootstock.

:-)

~Christopher

Why would it be so short in a cemetery? Unless someone recently sheared it back hard or it's newly planted. Mine grew into a tall monster within the first year of planting.

Because unless the cemetery is completely deserted, there are groundskeepers who will cut roses down to size before they became a jungle.

Here's an example -- "Odorata" rootstock can grow anywhere from 12 to 20 ft. -- but in this cemetery, it was pruned to prevent that from happening:


The color on the photo of IXL that I posted was pretty dark. It ages much paler, and really does look like a dead ringer for Veilchenblau. See photos at:
http://helpmefind.com/gardenin...