As there have been rumours about very very occasional successes in breeding from this difficult number, I would love to ask anyone with photographic and other true documentary evidence of successful breeding with this beast.
Could anyone with such luck post some material here evidencing this?
Caveat…Hybridity is hard to be certain about in cases where Euphrates was the pollen parent and the progeny show no blotch or other trait suggesting Euphrates genetics. Such cases are not proof enough, and could be apomixis at play.
Simon,
I recall you recently posted somehwere on this forum that a rosarian had shared knowledge that ‘Euphrates’ is indeed the parent of a successful commercial line of Hulthemia hybrids coming out of the UK.
I find this very fascinating, and very new information, to be sure.
Are you able to elaborate more on this?!..(eg. how was ‘Euphrates’ used etc etc…)
I am also interested in the progress of your Altissimo x Euphrates cross. How is it coming along?
Everything I know is here: http://rosehybridizers.org/forum/message.php?topid=25867#25962
Interplant has kept the details close to their chest. The information comes from Peter Harkness via Viru. Viru and Girija sent me a copy of an article Peter Harkness wrote for an Indian rose journal in which this information was published. In it the article also says that seed was, in the early stages, also obtained from hardii but they could not get them to germinate. I would love to repeat these crosses and use embryo culture now to see if progeny could be raised using more modern techniques.
The Altissimo x Euphrates hips is still on the bush and i snow big and fat.
The ‘Euphrates’ information is great to know, thanks for sharing with us…keep posting on the cross. I WANT it ot succeed for you as much as you do. Hope it has a blotch too.
Somewhere in my online travels I have come across rumour that Hardii is in this country…But I cannot remember where I came across this information?!
In it the article also says that seed was, in the early stages, also obtained from hardii but they could not get them to germinate.
This is new. In one of his two earlier articles (see below) he says hardii was completely sterile.
Link: www.bulbnrose.org/Roses/breeding/Persica/Harkness1989.html
Still, getting seed doesn’t prove fertility…who knows, maybe whatever seed they got using the ‘Hardii’ cross may have been dead seed…(we see dead embryos all the time in achene that appears outwardly very normal on the surface, yes?).
It would be nice to also know whether this achene was derived from ‘Hardii’ as seed parent, or pollen parent (in the latter case the possibility of apomyxis could add confusion to proof of hybridity).
In any case, what Simon has shared IS all very interesting, IMO.
:0)
Oh…I forgot to say, that is a great article thanks for posting it, Don!
Nigel Hawthorn definitely does not set small hips like I read. It tries to, but they shrivel up to brown nothings in the summer heat. I have watched it try for at least 5 years at Heirlooms, where they have 2 specimens. Its a very weird rose. It looks like a 1.5’T x 3’W miniature rugosa with almost gothic looking blooms in dark salmon with a garnet red eye zone. Too bad it really only blooms once. Every once in a while it lets out a few after its big push, but nothing to write home about.