As the years go by, you encounter many aficionados of The Rose who introduce you to some very curious things along the way. Certainly Ralph Moore has shown me, by far, the greatest number of rose oddities and today I want to introduce you to one of these.
This is the Reversion Sport of The Green Rose, R. chinensis viridiflora. It was discovered by Moore at Sequoia Nursery many years ago, growing as a lone branch on his mother plant of viridiflora, bearing semi-normal pink blooms. It doesn't always make such "regular" looking flowers as you see here; often they are halfway between normal and the odd green sepal formation of viridiflora. When they appear as ordinary pink China blooms, they are at their best.
As you can see, the Reversion Sport does produce normal reproductive parts, and in fact the plant will set seed if allowed to. (I don't recall whether these germinate or not, but I'm sure I have sown the seeds years ago) The appearance of this sport lends credibility to the supposition that viridiflora sported from 'Old Blush' at one time. Perhaps that's true! Curious, eh?
Sweet! Thanx for introduction! My secret love lies within the chinensis , still I have some difficulties to embrace the Viridiflora.. But my small garden in Sweden has the ambitions to collect as many chineses as the climate allows..
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