An Oddity

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?

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!