Hi all,
Has anyone had any experience using the Sweet Briar in crosses? This rose is pentaploid and would like to know what to expect when breeding with diploids, and other ploidy’s…what will work, what wont…
all or any advice with this rose as a parent welcome.
Cheers
I had enough luck with Saint Nicholas (gallica and Hebe’s Lip?) that I started breeding with Hebe’s Lip (rubiginosa and damask?), and once my Eglantine seedlings bloom, will be using that as well. As pollen parents, I think one can treat them identically to tetraploids. While I don’t know the ploidy of either SN or HL, both have been quite fertile as seed parents (extraordinarily so, by OGR standards), which I’m sure they inherited from rubiginosa. If one or both were pentaploid, they might exhibit the canina meiosis trait I banged my head against while breeding albas, which is to say, seedlings with a very strong resemblance to their seed parent, and much less input from the pollen parent, which can make for slow progress. My existing seedlings are too young, and too small a sampling, for me to yet speculate on ploidy of SN or HL.
I’m expecting that to come up with Eglantine proper, but it shouldn’t be as big a problem as with hexaploids, so I’ll still cross it both ways with tetraploids, and might put hexaploid pollen on it. With diploids, I think your odds would be better using it as pollen parent, but ploidy does weird things sometimes, so no harm in trying both ways. If you do, and most of your (rubiginosa x diploid) seedlings look an awful lot like their mom, you might still get some incremental gain that could make a difficult cross a bit easier. There aren’t that many diploids that are close relatives to section canina, so if, say, (moschata x rubiginosa) wouldn’t set, but (rubiginosa x moschata) did, maybe next generation, you could get (moschata x (rubiginosa x moschata)) to work. Or if what you wanted was something very close to rubiginosa, putting diploid pollen on it might be exactly the way to go.
I don’t mean to make a big deal of the ploidy thing, which rosebreeders have regularly circumvented, just to point out the potential issue, should you encounter it.
I have no experience breeding with this species, but Lord Penzance did:
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/Penzance1889.html
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/Penzance1893.html
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/Penzance1896.html
The last article adds a hopeful note:
“As I have mentioned the Hybrid Street Briers I will pause a moment to make known a fact which I only became aware of in this autumn of 1895. It occurred to me to have the hips of the Hybrid Sweet Briers cut off, and I only regret that it did not occur to me earlier in the season. They were already of a bright red colour, and formed very pretty objects, but I thought it would add to the strength and health of the plant to part with them. I certainly was not prepared for the result, for all the plants, with one or two exception, took to blooming freely a second time. During all August and September, and, indeed, until the arrival of the sharp frost in the latter part of October, I had three or four glasses of these blooms on my breakfast table every morning, perfuming the room with the very sweet scent of their flowers. From this experience I conclude that if the flowers are cut off as soon as they fade in summer, and the hips not allowed to form themselves, the autumnal flowering would be still more remarkable and abundant.”
Karl
There are a lot of interesting observations in those articles! The first paragraph of the second paper includes another note on rebloom, though it only applied to a minority of seedlings. “A RECENT issue of The Garden contains a colored plate of a group of the hybrid Brier Roses shown in London last year at the metropolitan exhibition of the National Rose Society by the raiser, Lord Penzance, an enthusiastic rosarian and liberal supporter of the society. These hybrids are obtained by crossing the Sweet-brier with various Hybrid Perpetual Roses, chiefly Alfred Colomb, Dr. Sewell and Paul Neyron. The new race is sweet-scented, with foliage as fragrant as that of the Sweetbrier. The color of the flowers varies, however, from light pink to scarlet, and in the Rosarian’s Year Book, Lord Penzance reports that ‘as many as four or five of the seedling Sweet-briers which have hitherto flowered have now turned out to be perpetuals, blooming a second time tin the autumn and blooming then freely. During the autumn of 1891, indeed, in spite of the heavy rains they have gone on blooming right through the month of October, and they bloom, like their seed parent, in clusters. An additional charm, and in my estimation a great charm, is to be found in the fact that these flowers have a very delicious scent—a scent quite independent and different from that of the foliage.’”
That scented foliage seems to go with pentaploidy (or at least, with using Eglantine as seed parent), is useful to know, as was being reminded that Lord Penzance, like myself with its hybrids, found the readiness with which it sets seed to be irresistable, and released (so far as anyone has yet detected) all pentaploid roses. Kordes seem to have usually crossed them the same way, which gives a pretty wide range of rubiginosa x … roses to study.
It doesn’t sound like they breed in a very symmetrical fashion, but it’s clearly nowhere near as bad as with albas.
I’m glad you quoted that paragraph. I had neglected to look for the article in The Garden.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/Penzance1893a.html
Karl
Sweet briar is one of my favourite scents so I have used it as seed parent. I have gotten seeds with glutinosa, Lac Majeau, Hazeldean, R. primula and R. glauca pollen, at least. Much poorer success with tetraploids. Their foliage looks very similar to their mother, as one would expect. I would like to get rid of the vicious spines…
Jukka, Finland
I love R. eglanteria too. It was one of the species I first started working with in the mid to late 1980’s. Early on I learned it was very difficult for me to work with it as a male onto modern roses. Very few seeds would set and out of those few germinate. Out of those that germinated few seedlings survived. They grew awkwardly and were weak. The main way I would get seedlings was using it as a female. I still have a few seedlings with the tetraploid ‘Haidee’ as a male parent. This one pictured is a cross of R. eglanteria x a tetraploid seedling (‘Spanish Rhapsody’ x (‘Applejack’ x likely R. alba semiplena)) and then this seedling op. It seems like in the first generation the fragrance still generally is strong, but then in subsequent generations many have much reduced fragrance.
Excellent Pic and information! are you talking about leaf fragrance or flower fragrance… ?
Inheritance of fragrance is a complex and puzzling business.
In the case of leaf fragrance, the leaves must possess glands that release the perfume. The quantity and quality of this perfume are separate problems.
Sawyer (1844) wrote:
Sometimes this odour is fruity, as in many varieties of > R. rubiginosa, > Lin. (the “Sweetbriar”) and is developed to such an extent as to be disengaged spontaneously, especially on a warm day, and by the gentle action of the wind after a light rain. All the green parts, especially the lower part of the leaves, contain innumerable oil glands, which, being broken by the slightest friction, exhale an agreeable odour which has been very rightly compared to that of an apple called “Pomme Reinnette,” or in English “Pippin.” The glands of > R. micrantha, > Smith; > R. graveolens, > Pers, and > R. glutinosa, > Sibth. secrete a very similar perfume. The composition of the body contained in these glands is apparently unstudied and little understood, but its odour is suggestive of > valerianale of amyl, > which is now prepared on a large scale for use in flavouring sweetmeats and liqueurs with the flavour of apples.*
The leaves of > R. lutea, > Dalech (> R. Eglanteria, > Lin.), (known also as > R. Capucine> ) possess an odour which is even finer, recalling that of jasmin.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/SawerPerfumes1894/SawerPerfumes1894.html
Do any Pernetianas possess scented leaves? If so, these might be helpful in recovering the leaf-scent of the Eglantine.
Van Fleet (1921) made an odd comment on the subject:
Blends of Hugonis with garden forms of > R. lutea> , such as Persian Yellow, Austrian Brier, and Austrian Copper, have yearly been attempted and only two weak seedlings secured, but the past season better success in securing seed was had by the use of the type known to botanists by the libelous designation of > R. foetida> . In plant and flower this type is scarcely to be distinguished from the familiar single-flowered form of Austrian Brier, but appears to have more active pollen. There is no unpleasant odor in leaf or flower, but rather a faint sweetbrier fragrance in the young growth on damp mornings.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/VanFleet/VanFleet1921/VanFleet1921.pdf
I would like to know where Van Fleet got this “R. foetida” that someone distinguished from “R. lutea”, and where it might be found today. But it is still interesting that a hybrid of R. hugonis x R. foetida had fragrant foliage.
It didn’t occur to me to smell the foliage of R. hugonis the last time I encountered it (more than 30 years ago). Has anyone sniffed it lately? Are the leaves glandular?
And this from HelpMeFind:
2 NOV 13 by Coriaceous
The delightful foliage fragrance is much stronger than that of sweet briar > R. rubiginosa> , and has been called the strongest in the genus.
I think it is worth noting that Hurst described R. rubiginosa as ABBCD, indicating that the pollen would carry the B chromosome(s).
R. ecae var. primula would be BB.
At the very least, a cross of Rubiginosa x Primula could produce a yellow(ish) flowered hybrid with a stronger leaf perfume than ‘Lord Penzance’.
From GardenWeb:
Molineux(6b)
REINE DES VIOLETTES has leaves that smell like roses and pepper. On sultry summer nights the foliage fragrance wafts quite a bit. Then there are the gorgeous soft purple flowers.APPLEJACK is another rose with fragrant foliage, which is redolent of green apples. It will sometimes repeat so is definitely worth investing.
The Floribunda COTILLION / PERFUME PERFECTION has fragrant foliage
http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1643117/fragrant-leaves-whats-with-that
I did the cross R. rubiginosa X R. primula last year and got a small number (20-30) of seeds. None germinated yet, but I have never seen rubiginosa seeds germination after just one winter. I’m really excited about this cross because both species have a fantastic foliage scent, but very different so who knows what surprise the cross might be.
Jukka
Jukka,
I hadn’t even thought of this cross until today, and you’re already on the way to success. I wish you the best of luck.
Karl
Karl, I’m always suspicious if rubiginosa seedlings are true hybrids because they always resemble their mother. In this case primula scent should reveal true hybrids, if any. I have also pollinated rubiginosa with glutinosa with fragrant foliage in mind. It would also be interesting to try to combine the resinous scent of some old garden roses (moss etc.) with rubiginosa. Foetida persiana has fragrant foliage if you crush it a bit. How about foetida bicolor, which produces tons of pollen, do you know if it has similarly fragrant foliage?
Jukka,
I haven’t encountered a foetida bicolor for several years, and didn’t think to smell the leaves. Maybe someone else can enlighten us.
Karl
Many years ago, I had foetida bicolor but it had reverted (?) to yellow. I remember the tips of the shoots were glandular and sweetly scented. The smell reminded me of the “Sweet Tart” candies we used to get from the gum-ball-machine style dispensers at the grocery store.
So I’ve been devouring the forum for information. I’m highly interested in the sweet briar and have learnt that:
now given the 4+1 kind of points out that pollen essentially behaves as diploid so on a species level would typically be expecting diploid type pollen…how do we explain the Lord Penzance hybrids as they typically use tetraploid pollen parents (often R. foetida or a hybrid of). Many of those (Penzance hybrids) seem to be listed as hexaploid on HMF, so how would they behave? 4+2 or as a normal hexploid?
Back to the Lord Penzance hybrids (as r.rubiginosa is considered a noxious weed here so access to species would require going to find feral populations or engaging in possibly questionable behaviour) and foliage scent, so using the Penzance hybrid as the seed parent would you use diploid or tetraploid pollen? I’d assume tetra given you already have the explain chromosome floating around but this whole Caninae thing is new to me, still wrapping my head around it.
Anyone have any further insights?