I have read similar complaints in other places, but I do have one note that Luther Burbank successfully crossed R. rugosa x R. sinica. This was included in a list of double-flowered Rugosa hybrids.
In addition I saw a suspicious plant at the San Jose Heritage garden that looks like ‘Anemone’ but reblooms.
Furthermore, on one occasion I saw an odd sport on one cane.
Compare with the normal cane.
More reports:
Rosa laevigata hybrids
American Rose Annual, 16: 45-51 (1931)
Breeding Better Roses
Rev. George M. A. Schoener, Santa Barbara, Calif.
Eliminating mildew seems also possible through a new strain of hybrid Laevigata roses. Heretofore, it was claimed that R. laevigata, better known as Cherokee, does not make seed, and that other species and types would not take its pollen. Such is not the case, as hundreds of combinations were made with Laevigata as seed-bearer, using pollen from Hybrid Teas, Teas, Hybrid Perpetuals, and Pernetianas. Pollen of Laevigata used on Gigantea has proved that even the Gigantea foliage can be improved, making it much more rigid and glossy, a sure preventive of mildew. In the face of such success it is surely deplorable that the continuation of this experiment is most doubtful. Without further support, these far-reaching experiments are doomed, the more so as it is unlikely that Dr. Crocker will be able to take care of the germination work for the second generation, if nobody else finds it worth while to help push the work to a completion where it would be possible to write out reliable, mathematically correct findings to become the basis for others to carry on systematic rose-breeding.
Rural New Yorker, 67: 788 (Oct 10, 1908)
Walter Van Fleet (1908)
AUTHENTIC CHEROKEE HYBRIDS.—Notwithstanding the vigorous growth of the Cherokee rose under favorable conditions it appears difficult to produce artificial hybrids of sufficient vitality to grow to flowering size. We have made many crossings on the Rural Grounds, using a typical plant for the seed parent, and fertilizing with pollen from many desirable garden roses and rose species. There is little difficulty in growing the resulting hybrid seedlings for a season or two, but even with the most careful glasshouse treatment they decline and die before the blooming age is reached. We have propagated some of the most promising by cuttings, and have even budded them on the parent Cherokee but without success, all perishing without bloom, though canes six feet long have been produced. The only exceptions are two plants of Cherokee x Frau Karl Druschki, a white Hybrid Perpetual, that are now entering their third year with some promise of continued growth. A very striking common feature of the hundred or more Cherokee hybrids we have grown is the entire disappearance of the characteristics of the mother plant. In no instance were the hooked prickles and narrow glossy foliage of Cherokee reproduced. The general type even when pollen from the most diverse sorts was used, is dwarf and bushy, with slender straight thorns or spines and foliage of the character of the pollen parent. One exception was produced by pollen of Marshal Niel, the well-known climbing yellow rose of northern greenhouses. This hybrid had hooked spines and intermediate foliage. Several propagations of it were made and buds inserted in various stocks, some growing strongly for a season or two, but all died without producing a flower, though one of the best plants was sent to a careful California grower for trial.
MR. HOCKRIDGE’S HYBRID—Mr. Hockridge has obtained under the favoring skies of California an authentic blend of Cherokee with Gloire des Rosomanes, a tall-growing red Remontant, introduced as far back as 1825. He describes the bloom as small, yellowish white, and disappointing, but with the possibility of paving the way for something better. He wonders where the yellow comes from when pollen of a red rose is used on the white Cherokee. As yellow also predominates in the immature blooms of Silver Moon, which came from using Cherokee pollen on a white-flowered species, as well as in Rosa Fortuneana, the presumed hybrid with the white Banksian rose, it would appear quite dominant in the immediate offspring of Cherokee. The yellow coloring of the stamens is intense in the type, and may spread to the corolla in the hybrid seedlings.
Burbank’s 1918 offering of twentieth century: fruits, flowers and various economic plants p. 16
Cathay: Cherokee and Crimson Rambler cross. Extra strong grower and profuse bloomer. Single flowers deep rose-pink, in clusters, each blossom 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Does not fade and does not mildew. Field grown plant, each, $1.
Garland: Cherokee and Crimson Rambler cross. Strong grower, fine foliage, does not mildew. Flowers of a light shell-pink color in enormous clusters; each cluster a perfect bouquet which lasts, without fading, for a long time. Field grown plant, each, $1.
New Creations in Fruits and Flowers (June 1893) p. 38
Rugosa Hybrids, etc.
Besides the Roses before described, a climbing pink Rose is attracting attention. It received a medal from the California State Floral Society. Also some extra fine large double Rugosa Hybrids from Rugosa X Gen. Jacqueminot, Rugosa X La France, Rugosa X Paul Neyron, Rugosa X Banksia, Rugosa X Sinica and other crosses. These, though lacking in the lasting qualities of most roses, are, in brilliancy of color, unexcelled.
The Garden 49: 488-489 (June 27, 1896)
PROGRESS IN THE HYBRIDISING OF ROSES.*
*A paper by the Rt. Hon. Lord Penzance in “The Rosarian’s Year-Book,” 1895.
“Another experiment must be recorded which up to the present time has not met with success. The beautiful glossy foliage of the Rosa camelliaefolia [laevigata] is very inviting to the eye of the hybridiser, and if I could only transfer this foliage to some of our Hybrid Perpetuals, I should consider it a useful triumph. But I could not get the camelliaefolia to flower. From what I have read in the gardening publications I conclude that other people have met with the same difficulty. At last my opportunity came. The splendid sunny season of 1893 ripened the wood of my plant so thoroughly, that in 1894 it gave me twenty flowers. Two of these I treated with the pollen of other plants, but obtained no hips. The remaining eighteen I reserved for pollen, with which I fertilised the blooms of numerous Hybrid Perpetuals. I had a good crop of seed, and I have, perhaps, a hundred plants. In vain have I looked for a shiny leaf. Many of the seedlings have a foliage inclining that way, and certainly different from that of the seed parent, but none (unless as they grow up they put on a more glossy appearance) carry the true Camellia-like leaf which was the object of my quest.”
