A few questions here…
I have a Charles de Mills I crossed with pollen from Lambert Closse just to experiment. This cross produced a hip that yielded 25 large seeds. I waited for the hip to mature, and found that every one of these seeds floated when I soaked them in a light solution of water and hydrogen peroxide. There was one o/p hip from CdM as well that yielded 6 seeds; three of which sunk in the solution. This rose is reputed to be sterile, so is it likely that it selfed?
And why would it bother setting hip with that many floating seeds when crossed with pollen from a modern variety?
Mme Hardy set two o/p hips of considerable size that matured without any seed. How is it possible that a rose sets hip with no seed?
Charles de Mills is far from sterile. I have grown many seedlings using it as a seed parent, using various pollens on it.
Then it’s a good thing I haven’t discarded them, Henry.
Paul, you’ve sparked my curiosity, and I would like to know more about those seedlings of yours from CdM. Have any of them flowered for you, and what sort of results did you achieve from the pollens that you used on this rose?
I’m patient for an account as to why Mme Hardy would produce hips without seed.
‘Charles de Mills’ seedlings are often nice, but none have been anywhere near as spectacular as their parent. Bloom size is always smaller than ‘Charles de Mills’, and color is often disappointing. However, I have a few seedlings currently in testing that show some promise, with DARK purple-black blooms. I think its a parent worth exploring, but I have yet to obtain a seedling that comes close to my expectations in the seedlings I have grown so far. ‘Duchesse de Montebello’ is a far more capable parent, although in lighter colors. Its offspring are often very beautiful and very vigorous.
As for ‘Mme. Hardy’, I can’t tell you why it does that, but I can tell you that many Damasks and Damask Perpetuals will produce a few hips with no seeds in them. Obviously the signal to abort isn’t always sufficiently strong to prevent hip formation, even when no fertilization has occurred.
Regards,
Paul
Every ‘Mme. Hardy’ I’ve ever grown has had vegetative centres.
Some HT’s too. Miss All-American Beauty commonly produces huge hips with no seeds.
On occasion, Mme Hardy is capable of producing normal stigmas, and that’s because a friend of mine got seeds from this rose by crossing it with pollen from a modern variety. I found a combination of both vegetative and normal stigmas on roses that are reputed to have proliferate centers. The vegetative centers are at times accompanied by an outer ring of normal stigmas. I found this true of Molineux; a hip formed on this rose by placing pollen on its outer stigmas. The seeds weren’t the greatest (and floated), mind you, but it did form a hip regardless.
Paul, isn’t ‘Duchesse de Montebello’ supposedly believed to be a china-gallica hybrid? I recently, as in last September, got a pretty large one from Maryland’s own Heritage Rosarium, and it’s showing the unusual tendency to keep it’s leaves compared to Tuscany Superb who readily shed his. Could that be from it’s china heritage? If that’s so then could it be used to create remonant roses? I remember you used it in the breeding of 'Marianne.