Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Working with R. clinophylla

Several years ago Gene Waering distributed seeds of R. clinophylla to several rose collectors, including myself. From my batch of seed I grew about a dozen plants. I gave several away, ultimately keeping only two, which had flowered within 2 months of germination. I thought perhaps these would have some kind of genes for remontancy in them, although my work with these two so far indicates this is not so. Curiously, R. clinophylla has a fragrance often compared to the smell of Acetone, much like its close relative R. bracteata.

The rose pictured here (click photo to see a full sized version) is one of my first hybrids using my R. clinophylla. This is seedling 92-06-03, bred using a self seedling of Ralph Moore's 0-47-19 I grew years ago called 42-03-02.

This seed parent, 42-03-02 is a fully remontant pink/purple with 5 to 9 petals, blooming in large panicles of 1 inch blooms on a 2.5 X 2.5 foot plant. It is highly resistant to all diseases and although not tested for its ploidy, I expect it is a diploid, like its parent. It also happens to be quite fragrant. I have not used it extensively as a parent until fairly recently, choosing it more often now because I have a use for a disease resistant diploid in my work. (You'll read more about that in the months to come, I'm sure)

Back to 92-06-03: this is the most colorful of the three seedlings from this cross to bloom so far. There are four more that have not yet bloomed and they are behaving as though they have genetic problems, so I expect they will be discarded this year. The plant in the photo has long arching canes that bloom along the length of the cane all in one quick flush, with side buds following shortly after. Each bloom lasts 2 days and then drops cleanly. This clone has a slight fragrance. This plant and its two siblings are being used as both seed and pollen parent this year to determine if they have fertility. I am using some old standard diploids with them, such as 'Old Blush' and 'Trier' with the hope that these will allow me to step forward with some remontant, fertile diploids in the next generation. The beautiful ferny glossy foliage on these (especially 92-06-02, which you can read about here) is something I want to retain, but with this ancestry, I suspect these will be evergreen, warm climate roses only. We shall see!

5 comments:

  1. Paul, how in the world do you keep it straight? Do you keep everything noted on your computer or? I would be very interested in a little synopsis.
    I also committed on yesterdays answer, please read it as I don't want to ever be a problem child! Best to you, rod-

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  2. Did you just germinate the clinophylla seeds in the normal way? I've got some coming from Viru and Girija. Was there much variation in the seedlings? This seedling is a lovely rose in itself... I really love pink with a white eye on a single flower.

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  3. Rod,
    I keep spreadsheets and such, yes. Recording parentage and results is a must to keep any order to my work.

    As for germinating the R. clinophylla seeds, I don't recall doing anything special at all, I just planted them. I don't think I chilled them beforehand either. This is a warm climate species and as such, probably needs no stratification treatment. My seeds also came from Viru, through Gene. Very slight variation in the seedlings, mostly in size and vigor. Otherwise they were pretty much identical.

    Glad you like this seedling, and yes, I agree that its an attractive flower. I am curious to see what it looks like as it matures. These all need to go into larger containers now.

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  4. Thanks Paul I been wondering what this rose was for a while. Until finally my curiosity decided it was time to ask. I thought it was maybe Basye's Amphdiploids seedling when I saw pictures of them. How wrong I was. It might be interesting to cross seedlings of the two.

    I planted R. clinophylla seeds using the standard treatment. I think the cold treatment probably contributed to them not growing. But it may have also been inexperience. It was probably a good thing however because I don't know what I would have done with a R. clinophylla plant in colorado anyways.

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  5. I can't imagine that R. clinophylla would be very useful to you in your climate. The second of my two specimens was planted out in the open garden four years ago and each Winter it is killed to the ground. Every June it makes a bit of new growth but clearly it doesn't like it here. I'm in a Zone 8, by the way, just to indicate how Winter hardy this species is NOT. It wants to grow where it gets no frost exposure whatsoever, I believe.

    I plan on breeding this with other warm climate roses to develop some semi-tropical hybrids for frostless places. I have a feeling that trying to mix these with deciduous varieties would just result in a lot of confused genetics.

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