192-09-04: revisiting the Hybrid Bracteatas?

Years ago Ralph Moore urged me to take home a plant of his 1999 Hybrid Bracteata 'Out of Yesteryear' for breeding purposes. He felt it offered the greatest potential for hybridizing what had been till that point a rather difficult species to work with. (You can obtain hybrids from R. bracteata but the offspring are often weak, infertile, or die before reaching flowering size, making further hybridizing difficult or impossible.) Ralph was right, of course; 'Out of Yesteryear' proved a valuable parent in the work I was doing in the early 2000s. However.....

'Out of Yesteryear' has its limitations. For me, the biggest obstacle was its tendency to wash most of the color out of its progeny. You could cross it with the darkest yellows, the richest oranges and reds and end up with pale buttery yellows, pinks and the occasional peachy "art shade". Oh, and white. Lots and lots of white. I quickly began to focus on working with the most strongly pigmented offspring, moving away from 'Out of Yesteryear' as quickly as possible. One such seedling was 174-02-17, which I have spoken of several times. (Click the link to see the posts mentioning it) Still, I wished there was a true RED Bracteata hybrid to work with. So, periodically I have gone back to 'Muriel', Moore's original hybrid, to poke around in its gene pool in search of better color.

Enter stage left: 192-09-04. The seedling pictured here is a cross of ('Penny Ante' X 'Tradescant') and 'Muriel'. The seedling used as seed parent is one I find I often go to to search for color in difficult situations. While the plant itself is very stiffly upright in the manner of many Hybrid Teas, it produces astonishing panicles of up to 40 blooms and does not exceed six feet in height. It will take pollen from absolutely anything and most all seeds germinate, so it has become a kind of "go to guy" in my arsenal of breeders.

So, in May of 2009 I dash a bit of 'Muriel' pollen on a few blooms of it and voila! We have the seedling pictured above. I can't provide a lot of data about the plant yet, as it made only minimal growth in year one: it is still only 14" tall and three branches. It bloomed twice in year one, which suggests it will be free blooming. It appears to have no pistils/stigmas, so it is likely to function as a pollen parent only, assuming there is any fertility there at all. (I have seen little evidence of stamens yet either, but won't rule out the possibility until it is older) Only time and trial will tell. Still, I am hopeful. It has remarkably good coloring for a 'Muriel' hybrid; perhaps I tapped in to the 'Guinee' red in its background when mating it with my "Penny-trad".

Side note: sowing the 2010 crop of seed today, hoping to finish up the task. (I started two days ago) I can't believe its THAT time already! Yikes. Have a good weekend, all.

62-03-01: 'Precious Dream' X 'Muriel'

This seedling is the only one I kept from a very small batch of the cross of 'Precious Dream' X 'Muriel' I made in 2003. The idea was to work with two of the Moore Bracteata hybrids to create a breed line, emphasizing the R. bracteata characteristics. This seedling accomplished that in some ways: it doesn't bloom very freely, it is dreadfully thorny in the worst way (flesh-ripping fish hook style!) and has that awkward climbing habit similar to 'Muriel': sprawling, open growth that goes every which way.

I have barely used this seedling in breeding, in part because it flowers far later than most other roses, even when grown under plastic, and blooms only sparingly. in 2009 it didn't flower at all! Still, if I get anything from it this Spring, I will use it on some of my R. clinophylla hybrids and see where that leads me. (R. bracteata and R. clinophylla are closely related)

Note to my hybridizer buddies: I have one spare plant of 62-03-01 available to anyone who wants to use it in breeding. It is freeze tender, so it should go to someone in a hospitable climate ;-)

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.