Little Treasures

Every once in a while you get a pleasant surprise exactly when you don't expect it. Last year, in an effort to concentrate more on developing a diploid breeding line with disease resistance, I collected a number of open pollinated seeds from 'Magic Wand' one of the well documented Moore breeders. It is one of the first generation of "Zee" hybrids; a "climbing" shrub with very small foliage and large panicles of tiny, deep pink blooms. Although 'Magic Wand' is a tall growing cultivar, it frequently breeds very dwarf offspring, regardless of the stature of the other parent. For me, it has potential value as a breeder because it is virtually indestructible in my climate, thriving with minimal care and resisting all three of the major fungal diseases without chemical assistance.

And so, I grew a population of open pollinated seed to see what traits it had to offer. Mostly, I expected to see a range of characteristics, both dominants and recessives, but I didn't expect to keep any of the seedlings. The one pictured here was most noteworthy, with its well-formed blooms, spotless foliage, dense, bushy growth habit and balanced scale of all plant parts (tiny). It didn't hurt that the blooms are remarkably sweet-scented for such tiny flowers. (Blooms do not exceed 0.5" in diameter) So, I'm keeping this feller. I've struck a few cuttings already and it roots in a matter of days (+- 8 days), which is even better.

Funny, isn't it, how these little gifts turn up in a body of work in the places you don't expect them. The surprise factor is probably what I enjoy most about the work I do. I imagine a lot of hybridizers feel the same way. :-) Oh, and one more thing: I have given it a nickname for now; a reference to a rose it resembles: 'Si', by Pedro Dot. I'm calling it "Si Plus Plus". I wonder how many people will get that pun?

Second of the 'Magic Wand' OP seedlings to bloom

This is a rather remarkably complex flower for something so tiny!

Followup on post from three days ago.

Here is that same 'Magic Wand' open pollinated seedling, its first bloom open. Yes, that is a penny. ;-)

How tiny does tiny get??

It is a fairly well documented fact (R. S. Moore and others) that the miniaturism trait is a dominant one, and you need only one of the parents to be a miniature in order to obtain a good percentage of dwarf plants from a cross. Well, what happens if you cross miniature X miniature? Often, the offspring get smaller still! If you have ever done a cross like that, you will have no difficulty imagining how Pedro Dot came up with 'Si'.

Illustrated here is one of the first seedlings to bloom from a crop of 'Magic Wand' X self seeds. Out of about 80 seedlings I have grown, I would say that about 90% are dwarf, with about 25% of these being extremely dwarf. About eight or ten seedlings appear to be much larger in both leaf and growth habit than the parent variety, which is also to be expected with such crosses.

To give you an idea of scale (yes, I ought to have photographed it with a coin beside it) the pot shown here is 2.75" square. The plant is currently no more than 1.5" tall, and I would estimate that bud is no more than 1/8th of an inch tall (center of the plant, pale pink): the ultimate in cute. Click on the photo to get a much larger image.

I didn't grow this group of seedlings with the idea of actually keeping any of the offspring, I did it to show me the scope of what 'Magic Wand' would do as a parent. If it harbors extremely undesirable traits, they will show up in a selfing batch. Desirable traits as well, will manifest in the seedlings, and so this is a learning excercise more than anything. I often sow self-seedlings from a variety before I put it into actual use as a breeder, just to determine its fertility and other traits. Mind you, I am pretty certain that I will save a few of the best of these tiny things and keep them around as curiosities. ;-) I'll post photos of some of the others as they flower, assuming they are the least bit photogenic!

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Although it has taken 2.5 months for them to germinate, I have finally got eight seedlings from the cross of R. bracteata X Magic Wand. The idea here is to make a new Bracteata line that will hopefully maintain diploidy, and good fertility as well. Crosses fingers.

R. bracteata offers up a surprise.

R. bracteata has been a difficult species to work with, and I think part of the problem lies in the fact that the first hybrids made with it, like Moore's 'Muriel', were created using tetraploids. I have a feeling that mating it with a diploid instead might prove useful for furthering a breeding line of this kind. With that in mind, I pollinated my R. bracteata a few weeks ago with the well-known miniature breeder 'Magic Wand', also a diploid. I expected this cross to fail, but much to my surprise, I now have about a dozen fat hips forming on my R. bracteata, with 'Magic Wand' as the pollen parent. Now to see if there are actual viable seeds formed in the months ahead. We shall see.