It struck me how much this new seedling resembles one of it’s great-great-great grandparents.
Does it look familiar to anyone else???!
Heredity is fascinating. I suppose that it is one of the reasons that we are drawn to this hobby!
Jim Sproul
My guess would be Geisha. Am I close or off the mark?
Geisha has to be correct. I still cant believe some of the names roses receive, lol. I’m gonna start trying to register my next rose as ‘Tramp’ 
I’m only kidding, of course. One of the first things I realized in horticulture, especially in rosarians, is the ease in which we disassociate the name of the rose to its meaning and the ease in which we associate the name of the rose with its attributes, culture and our sensory experience. Its really easy to forget what we are actually saying when talking plant names, haha.
I could never figure out what triggers the dark red stamens other than it seems to appear in hybrids with red roses bred with light roses. Dainty Bess, Geisha, First Light and Sheer Bliss come to mind. Traumland from one of my books shows red stamens but the HMF pics dont =/
‘Dainty Bess’…
Dainty Bess seconded here.
The first thing that came to mind was ‘Dainty Bess’ not being familiar with ‘Geisha’ myself…
I see nothing wrong with the name ‘Geisha’ though, the geisha and their apprentice maiko (really its the maiko that are the common colorful stereotypical image of the geisha in western culture, true head geisha wear subdued colors and make-up) were and are entertainers and artists of rather sophisticated culture hired to enliven parties/events and today they keep a lot of dying Japanese traditions alive by their study and practice. They really shouldn’t evoke anything bad…if you’re thinking of something rather saucy, I blame WWII for that as prostitutes would imitate geishas for clients. Apparently to tell the difference at times when most courtesans and prostitutes copied geishas you had to notice the way their obi on their robe was tied - true geisha have them tied in the back, fake ones, or the courtesans would have their tied in the front.
Now ‘Tipsy Imperial Concubine’ on the other hand…that name is a saucy one! Personally when it comes to naming things, at least my own hybrids in the future I want to be cheeky about it, or at least clever. I would love to name something ‘Strumpet’ or ‘Boudoir’ since there’s already an Iris named ‘Wench’ and two other things called ‘Brazen Hussy’.
I got a kick out of looking at an Iris catalog once, iris and daylily breeders are perhaps the wackiest bunch and the most free namers. We sell a daylily at our nursery named ‘Bat Signal’ (being 20 and a big Batman fan…this was killer) and in the catalog there was a iris I think called ‘Attack Lizard’ and ‘Salamander Crossing’. I’d buy them for the names alone.
Anyway, back to red stamens -
My first seedling ever, an OP of ‘Queen Elizabeth’ features rather pretty red stamens, its a shame because it lacks anything else redeemable. Talk about disease stick. Poor thing.
I really like ‘Plaisanterie’ and I’m amazed at how much it both looks like both of its parents, I mean it’s totally the son of ‘Mutabilis’ with the flower colors and slight blue-reddish hue to the leaves but also looks entirely like ‘Trier’ in terms of petal shape give or take a few less petals.
I wonder what else out there has obvious resemblances that strangely pop up.
Max
Yes, the great great great grandmother (seed parent) is ‘Geisha’. Thanks Max for the history about geishas!
What isn’t very clear in the photo is the light striping, coming from one of it’s great grandparents, ‘Fourth of July’.
The full parentage is:
|| X ||
The detail above is for the seed parent. Since it was “open pollinated” in the greenhouse, where there are no bees flying around, the likely pollen parent is the same as the seed parent. So ‘Geisha’ would be found up both lines, so to speak.
Jim Sproul
Hi Max, Geisha is mutable depending on the era. However, my biggest issue with the time line of the tradition is the usage of them as male entertainers. It’s pretty gross, but, then again, I was the only one of my guy friends that refused to go to a strip club. The “art” may be different but the psychological and sociological behavior isn’t much of a stretch. I’ve never been a fan of setting up a gender as a wholesale concept or product within society. btw, Portland is the strip capital of America. What can I say, there’s nothing else to do when its raining, lol.
I love it when imagination is induced in naming hybrids. I see horticulture and landscaping as an escape that is reality. It helps people be calm in their immediate environment, so I love the idea of fantasy-themed plant names such as those that you listed. I also love plant names that poetically describe the plant without really lying for the sake of marketing.
Jim, I cant see the striping =( I always meant to ask you tho, what sparked you to try Tobo x Singin in the Rain? And is SitR a better pollen than seed parent?
Hi Jadae,
Yeah, the striping is very subtle and the photo is not clear enough to distinguish them.
I did the ‘Tobo’ X ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ cross in 1996, I guess because I had seen that ‘Tobo’ set hips well. I liked it for its powdery mildew resistance and glossy foliage. ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ was still fairly new and I liked its novel color and floriferousness. From 264 seeds, I kept one seedling. It was a yellow semidouble smaller floribunda type rose that had very clean and glossy foliage in our climate. Both ‘Tobo’ and its seedling TBSR are long gone, but because it’s offspring still figure into many of my seedlings, it shows up a lot in my parentage notations.
‘Singin’ in the Rain’ was both a good seed and pollen parent for me. After not using it much for several years, I pollinated several of its blooms with some of the new Hulthemias from this year. It looks like several hips “took”, so there should be some seedlings of it to look at next year.
Jim Sproul
Some random thoughts…
SitR does have a nice novel color. One of it’s progeny won AARS- Mardi Gras. I have a very strongly fragrant seedling from Mardi Gras this year.
Speaking of family resemblances, this seedling is very strongly adverse to being sprayed. Mardi Gras has that problem to some extent as well. Does SitR or its other progeny share this characteristic as well?
I associate SitR and South Africa together for whatever reasons. I have found SA to be VERY disease resistant (and I purposefully have not sprayed it this year). Does anyone have any experience with it? I know mine is setting hips well. I will probably work on crossing it with the above MG seedling.
That might explain why my SitR is quite burnt back at the tips, one more so than the others. Last year it had Downy Mildew so badly that it didn’t set any hips, so this year I sprayed it along with everything else when I found a couple of leaves on a couple seedlings that were producing spores. And now as a preventive measure I am overdoing it rather than underdoing it. It does produce some interesting seedlings.
Jim, I wasn’t familiar with Geisha and looked it up. The resemblance is uncanny. My seedlings are coming up with 10 (or more) variations on Playboy, mostly as off spring of About Face. So far, this one below doesn’t fade although it does turn a vermilion orange that is a bit hard on the eyes. This is it’s first bloom, so everything might be iffy. 
ooh, that is really pretty. love it!
Jon, I haven’t use ‘South Africa’, but look forward to using ‘Mardi Gras’ - Kathy Strong sent me some cuttings that are almost rooted now.
Jackie, those are nice colors on that seedling. Downy mildew is the hardest disease to select against in my experience. We don’t get it every year, and it seems that some roses will get it bad one year, but not the next time that it is around. It sure is a nasty one!
Jim Sproul
Jackie,
When you said, ‘mostly as off spring of About Face’, which parent is that; seed or pollen?
About Face was the pollen parent. I got similar colors with Moondance X ELLE, Gemini X Shockwave, and Gemini X About Face. The Moondance X ELLE are fading considerably, but some are amazingly similar in coloration. The Gemini X Shockwave have retained the yellow coloration better, and the Gemini X About Face have mostly been very mutable, ending up a very deep vermillion orange or coral. I used About Face for pollen only because it aborted all its’ hips. It was infected with Downy Mildew, as was Gemini, but Gemini did not abort. About Face and Singing in the Rain were the last to get the DM, and both did not set any hips. SitR was so ragged looking I did not even try to utilize pollen, but that’s another cross that should produce some similar colors.The photo below is a Moondance X Elle seedling. It has bloomed several times and fades to a nice “apricot peach”, just like Playboy.
Jackie that is a very nice color combination in that seedling.
Jim, hope you have good luck with Mardi Gras. I have to admit I can imagine something like this with the hulthemia blotch or halo- that would be sweet.
I’m finding a trait with Gemini is that almost all of my seedling from her have the red/orange trim on the petals. Has anyone else noticed this?
I used Gemini sparingly in 2009 and did not notice much of the red edge, but this past season used it more, and got many red/orange/carmine edges that darkened as they aged. I believe that is either phototropism or mutability (?)Either way a lot of this developed out of the China teas, if you ever have noticed Mutabilis(sp?) which changes on the whole petal. And then there is the Joseph’s Coat, Rumba, Confetti, Pinata, line which does something similar with a whole different effect. Cherry Parfait and Double Delight are well known for their cherry/vanilla look. I suppose Gemini has some strong affinity to China teas in its’ background.