These roses are the descendants of cuttings that Dr. Cornay’s great-grandmother brought from France in the late 1800s, and they are now ancient themselves: the base of one trunk is 12 inches in diameter. Following in his great aunt’s footsteps, Cornay has hybridized a Louisiana iris of his own. He also propagates the now hard-to-find Katherine L. Cornay iris, as well as his great-grandmother’s rose and the century-old peony, which his wife’s ancestors brought from Missouri.
