Autumn Damask has been a healthy newcomer in my garden, ordered bare root from a reknowned French nursery/hybridizer early this year.
After her first flush in May I deadheaded her and she has been growing fine, except for a cane in the center that was a little slow and had a slightly bluer tinge to the foliage, but I didn’t think much about it.
Today I was deadheading her neighbor Darlow’s Enigma when I noticed something white. At first I thought it was a petal from DE. Upon closer inspection it was not.
I am including more pictures below.
This is really weird looking. Half petal, half leaf? Anyone know what causes this?
More pics of that petal/leaf:
DSC_6156~2.JPG
The reverse:
Full cane with more distorted leaves above the petal/leaf… I wonder what that terminal bloom will look like.
The closest I’ve seen to your leaf/petal is a leaf/petal on a tulip.
But I did see some sepals on ‘Marquise Boccella’ transformed into leaves.
O. F. Cook (1926) described these interesting oddities as Metaphanic Variations:
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Heredity/Cook/Cook_Metaphanic/metaphan.htm
1 Like
Thank you very much for that information and the link to the article, Karl K!
Metaphanic Variation… That’s a term I’d never heard before. Very interesting! Fascinating to read Cook’s discussion about variation and evolution too.
I had come across a couple pictures of tulips doing this online when I had googled “half leaf half petal”. It seems to be (somewhat) more prevalent in tulips.
Near the flowerbud, things continue to be weird, and it looks like there will be more “metaphanic variations” happening there too.
Out of curiosity, I took a flashlight to the back of the weirdo to see if it was veined like a leaf. It seems to have just a beginning of a central vein or at least a slightly thicker central line, that doesn’t branch off.
You see this kind of growth where petals form from stamen in rose flowers and petals and stigma fuse and morph in double hibscus sinensis blooms.
This time it isn’t Autumn Damask, but Firefighter (ORAdal). I’ll add it to this thread anyway since it appears to be a similar phenomenon.
I was struck by how red the new growth on one cane was, then realized those aren’t leaves, but petals:
I guess there must have been some kind of mix-up in the genetic instructions on what to grow where, and this is another “metaphanic variation”!
Metaphanic variation continues from the same point of growth on Firefighter : new leaves show either “half leaf half petal” or splotches of petal material within the leaves.
If this shoot continues to grow like this, I might try to root a cutting to see what might happen.
Hi SeasideRooftop, thanks for sharing the interesting looking picture. In this case, making a root cutting is certainly a good idea for further testing. I’m curious to see if and how the metaphanous variant develops further. If I remember correctly, I had this occurrence once before, but it was nowhere near as intense and remarkable as yours, and it has completely disappeared again.
The subject has kept me busy. I’m not entirely sure, but I think I’ve read in literature that only rose bud grafting can fix and secure a mutation. The root cutting method is not suitable for this purpose. It was important for me to mention this point. It would depend on a try.
1 Like
Thanks for your insight Roseus,
I would never have guessed that grafting is necessary to propagate mutations.
I don’t know if the mutation will continue or not. In the previous occurrence on Autumn Damask, it didn’t. Even if it does on Firefighter, it will take time for that cane to grow enough to provide propagating material. I will update here if it continues !
Learning how to graft is one of my goals: that was the ulterior motive behind my little corymbifera laxa germination experiment using Garrotta last fall. So now the rootstock seedlings are growing, but still very young, and then I will need to learn how to do it properly. It’s going to take a while.
1 Like
@SeasideRooftop if you want to stack the deck in your favor, see if you can obtain a multiflora type stock. They have thicker cambium layers which require much less expertise to successfully bud. And, they are excellent for chip budding, which also requires MUCH less expertise and practice to be successful.
1 Like
Thank you @roseseek, that’s very useful info! I have been reading your blog post about chip budding, it’s very helpful and well explained.
I’ll try to get some multiflora. Bare root season is basically over here, as we’re due to start hitting 25°c on Monday. I’ll see if I can find some own root multiflora bands; if not, it will have to wait until the fall.
2 Likes
I had my Rosa indigo do this last year, will report back if it does again this year
1 Like