A flower within a flower

The “flower within a flower” phenomenon was discussed a bit in the ‘Ebb Tide’ thread. I’ve had many seedlings with vegetative centers and some with vestigial bud-like structures in the center, but this is the only seedling I’ve had that produced a true flower within a flower. It is from the cross ‘Danae’ X ‘Mutabilis’. I think that it would be interesting to have roses that routinely bloom this way, producing bloom after bloom on the same stem.

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[/url]From Flower within flower[/url]

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Have other hybridizers seen this kind of flower within a flower in rose seedlings? It has been seen in Arabidopsis thaliana, the model organism for genetic studies in plants. In that case, the cause was mutations in three different florigenesis genes. The press release caught my eye in 2000 because it mentioned doubleness in roses, but I think that those remarks were added by whomever wrote the press release, rather than by the researchers. A Flower Within a Flower - Press Release[/url]

Here is an open-pollinated seedling of ‘Scarlet Moss’ that has bud-like structures in its flowers. This bloom had five of them. The one at the top is the best developed, but it never opened.

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I’ve seen other kinds of anomalous blooms in my seedlings. In this seedling of ‘Apricot Twist’ X ‘Ed Yesan’, the sepals are larger than usual, and the carpels appear to have been transformed into sepal-like structures.

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Jim,

Have you seen this?

Link: greatrosarians.com/weblog/?p=2308

Yeah, I got it with Orange Velvet x Hot Cocoa, lol.

I have to repost on this. The cross actually made me angry. I wanted an F1 to make a true russet climber. I got a nice everblooming climber that was healthy. It was even in the style I prefer (pillar type like Altissimo, Handel, Westerland, etc)But due to the issue, it is 100% sterile. I was lucky to get something healthy and russet because getting health from an F2 of Tropicana is a pain. So, a whole avenue was closed off. I dont have access to Orange Velvet anymore, so… meh.

The color was absolutely bizarre. It was coral overlaid with tan. The form was informal double. It looked like some weird candy from an upscale candy shop. I kinda liked it, especially since it loved the heat.

OMG Paul… http://www.excitingm.com/ You have to be kidding LOL LOL LOL LOL ROFLMAO!!!.. on other oddities… has anyone ever noticed ‘twin’ flowers? I have an old HT called ‘Golden Emblem’ and it routinely throws two flowers fused into one so that there is a normal row of petals all around that open to reveal two sets of stigma with a single row of stamens all around the outside.

Jim… in the third photo it shows the bud growing out and extending from the centre of the original flower… does this flower open and then does it produce another flower too? How long does this keep up for before the stem dies back? Do all the flowers do this or just random ones? This is kinda cool… not like that one at the above link which is the elephant man of roses.

Wow, Paul, I had not seen “Exciting-M”. I think bloom-within-bloom roses can be pretty, but that one isn’t. I guess it just goes to show that any novelty in roses has the potential to be marketable.

Simon, yes, the second bud opens to form a second flower. This seedling normally produces two blooms per stem, although I did see one stem that looked like it might produce three until the weather turned cold. I wonder if it is possible to breed roses that consistently produce three or more blooms per stem?

This seedling has no female parts, but it does have a row of stamens around the center. I’ll try the pollen next year.

My gf would laugh if I gave her that, lol. It is not aesthetic whatsoever :stuck_out_tongue:

Which reminds me,

One thing I have noticed in people that were not trained by rose exhibition, is that there seems to be multiple trends:

  1. Singles are usually disliked across the board except in some people.

  2. Exhibition formed blooms are well-liked.

  3. Extremely full, disorganized blooms are also well-liked.

Because I was originally trained in rose exhibition, I never thought of full, disorganized blooms as interesting. Once I battled through the snobbery instilled in me, I began to enjoy a huge range of rose forms. In fact, some exhibition style roses come off as very sterile and boring to me. I have noticed that women, as a general trend, seem to prefer round and full blooms a lot.

But… a rose proliferation as beautiful? Next…lol. It just reminds me of deformed frogs and really bad math fractals.

My wife was looking over my shoulder when I pulled up the link Paul listed. Her words…“My God, what is that?” I have a feeling if I ever gave her a rose that looked like that I would have another ex-wife!

damn there ugly!

Jim… does the second (or final flower if it goes past two) have female parts?

I haven’t seen female parts in any bloom on this seedling so far.

I forgot to mention in my first post that you can click on the small pics to get a larger version, but I suspect that most people have figured that out already.

I think there could be magic in proliferation.

It looks ugly now, but perhaps if they could be breed in a certain way where the flowers look nice, the petals fall of cleanly, and then a second set of flowers come in.

It’s a trait people have overlooked.