“Rosa Vilmorinii Bean” is labeled as “Roxburghii × Rugosa” at L’Haÿ.
Bloom pic below is from L’Haÿ website, foliage pic was taken by me at L’Haÿ last year. It isn’t thornless, but the thorns are more like small bumps than prickles, giving the canes a smoothish appearance.
I had picked three hips of it in mid-July 2022 during a rare chance visit to L’Haÿ. Most of Vilmorinii’s hips seemed to shrivel and drop as they colored, so I took a chance on some unripe ones that had barely a blush of color.
Several cycles of warm/cold later, 5/35 seeds finally germinated this month. They’ll be living indoors until the spring to shield them from our storm season.
Maybe selfs? Or would self-incompatibility be expected with a roxburghii × rugosa hybrid ?
In another thread last year, @Karl_K had kindly suggested that Walter Butt might be a good bridge between rugosa and hulthemia. I was never able to find Walter Butt, however this is from the same cross.
Some HMF references say Vilmorinii B. may be the same as Micrugosa Henkel, but the petals on Vilmorinii B. seem to be much darker pink than both Henkel and Walter Butt. Perhaps they are all siblings? All bred in 1905.
Whatever the case may be, hopefully these OP offspring can be useful. I will move them to individual pots next week.
Germination seems to have stopped. I’ll put the remaining seeds back in the fridge to see if any more can be squeezed out.
Congratulations, SeasideRooftop! What a pleasure. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
A small note about your mentioned rose ‘Walter Butt’. Horst Peters from Rosen-Kultur Germany cultivates and sells all the roses in his assortment. ‘Walter Butt’ is one of them (pls see the link below). If he does not have a clone immediately available, he is prepared to graft one for you next year. I think the delivery to Malta should not be a problem. If you are still interested pls just contact him under: rosen-kultur@gmx.de
Hello again, SeasideRooftop!
Fortunately, I have found a second source. Tous nos rosiers. Sadly, the rose is sold out at the moment, but if for some reason Mr. Peters can’t fulfill your wish, or you will prefer this origin after all, you still have another option by hand. Talos is located in France.
This is a nice development! We have a white form of this hybrid where I work, but I don’t believe I have ever seen any hips form on it. The cross might be useful at least here in the U.S. because R. roxburghii is fairly susceptible to Rose Rosette Virus, but R. rugosa is not.
Bean’s name was published just a bit too late (1914) to be the correct name for the hybrid, unfortunately–it is actually Rosa ×micrugosa F. Henkel, published in 1910. Because we don’t commonly see the invalid later homonym R. microphylla used for R. roxburghii any longer, there is a certain sense to spelling out the hybrid formula on a label.
Thanks Roseus! I’ll check them both next year. WB is a big plant, I will have to grow him in the ground, and I don’t have that right now, but next year it should happen. Good to have several potential sources to buy him from!
Thank you @MidAtlas , that is very interesting!
I’m very confused about Henkel being identical to the Roxburghii × Rugosa at L’Haÿ. Not just the flower color is different:
The hips of the one at l’Hay are smooth like rugosa hips whereas those I see on HMF for Henkel have the roxburghii prickly look.
Roxburghii×Rugosa hips from l’Hay website:
HMF picture of Micrugosa Henkel hips :
Can these really be the same rose? Or am I misunderstanding?
Please forgive me if there’s an obvious answer, I am nowhere close to being botanically knowledgeable.
The botanical name Rosa ×micrugosa F. Henkel, like R. ×vilmorinii Bean, applies to all hybrids between R. roxburghii and R. rugosa (as well as further generations and backcrosses to the parent species, as long as no other species but R. roxburghii and R. rugosa are involved). Within that hybrid, there can be all kinds of variation from clone to clone, of course.
I will say that the rose photographed at l’Häy looks atypical for the cross, so it may be misidentified; the slightly urn-shaped hips with sepals that don’t spread suggests that the non-rugosa parent might be some other species (such as R. moyesii, R. macrophylla, or R. davidii). The lack of spines on the hips is also noteworthy, although that might not necessarily rule out any involvement of R. roxburghii by itself (there is a clone of R. roxburghii with spineless hips), but in consideration with other traits, that may help paint a convincing picture of misidentification.
@MidAtlas thanks for taking the time to explain, I really appreciate it!
Well, that’s disappointing if there’s a good chance the plant at L’Haÿ is misidentified and not actually a roxburghii offspring.
I’ll grow these seedlings and see if I can find any clues in their appearance, and I’ll get a proper micrugosa next year from Roseus’ recommended sellers.
I found an article by Jocelen Janon where he discusses some of Vilmorin’s work. He mentions the Roxburghii × Rugosa, as well as another rose, Rugosa × Duke of Edinburgh, and shows pictures of both. The blooms and foliage seem almost indistinguishable. From page 10 of this pdf:
I went over to L’Haÿ’s website and found their pictures of Rugosa×Duc d’Edimbourg.The shape of these hips seems to me to be much more consistent with the ones I collected at l’Hay, although more red.
I wonder if perhaps this Rugosa × Duc D’Edimbourg could be the rose that somehow ended up mislabeled as Roxburghii ×Rugosa at l’Hay, but I guess I’ll never know for sure. The five seedlings are growing nicely, I’ll post pics when they bloom.
The hips certainly do look more like yours, although I’m not sure that I would have guessed it to be from a cross with the hybrid perpetual ‘Duke of Edinbourgh’, either, unless there is or was some other rose with that peculiar French spelling. I suppose anything is possible! It will be very interesting to find out what results from your OP seeds, whatever the background really is. It’s good to hear that the seedlings are growing well.
Here is the page for that rose at the website of Roseraie du Val-de-Marne, for anyone interested:
No knowledge on this topic, but just looked some things up, and will note that macrophylla, in addition to having similar heps, is described as being thornless. If on the other hand the parent were Davidii (tetraploid, I believe) that could potentially imply a modicum of sterility, and sparse hip set. (Found a post stating that Macrophylla is an autotetraploid, whatever that means…)
I wondered a bit about the apparent fertility, too. There are two most likely scenarios that could produce that outcome. Either it could have been a (relatively uncommon) unreduced gamete from the rugosa parent in a cross with a normal, reduced gamete from a tetraploid (i.e, ‘Duke of Edinburgh’), or a normal (reduced) gamete from the rugosa parent with a normal (reduced) gamete in a cross with a regular hexaploid (i.e. R. moyesii). There is no actual answer in that, of course, only a suggestion.
Autotetraploidy implies that the species is tetraploid, but it is believed to have originated from the incorporation of two whole genomes from a single diploid progenitor. That could potentially happen if two unreduced gametes (egg and pollen) from the same species combined, or if there was some spontaneous doubling of the somatic chromosomes along the way.
PDF document from the platform ‘Rosegen’ RoseGen - Die Rosen-Genealogie
The entries are partly based on phylogenetic studies and of literary sources.
Unfortunately, this specification will not be able to clarify the real genetic background of your seedlings right away, but I didn’t want to withhold it. Perhaps one or the other detail may be useful to you.
Those are some really interesting thoughts, thank you @MidAtlas@philip_la and @Roseus !
In the article’s footnotes, Janon does specify that the Duc D’Edimbourg referenced as a parent is indeed the HP bred by Paul in 1868.
However, I agree the hips are odd if the parent is an HP. Is “rugosa×duc d’edimbourg” also mislabeled at L’Haÿ?
I hope clues will appear as the seedlings mature. So far all seem to want to develop 7-9 leaflets and have nicely textured foliage. Thorniness varies from very low to quite high, but none are as prickly as my other OP rugosa hybrid seedlings.
A picture is worth a thousand words so I’ll post some pics this weekend; the seedlings are growing outside now and by the time I get home from work in the evenings these days, it’s too dark for photos.
Macrophylla parentage is a very interesting suggestion! Whatever the rose I collected hips from is, it was growing in a section of L’Haÿ where it is surrounded by rugosas, roxburghiis, and even Macrophylla Doncasterii, so unless these seeds were from a self-pollination, I guess there is a chance any of those could be a pollen parent to my seedlings. Unfortunately that won’t help with identifying the mother plant.
A quick note:
I had brought them back indoors due to a forecast for high winds this past weekend. As I was picking them up to bring them back outside yesterday I was surprised by a smell. The foliage is fragrant! A resinous odor. I have glutinosa and it’s definitely not the same kind of scent.
No idea how I hadn’t noticed it before, but it’s definitely there on 3/5 of them. The plot thickens!
This may be off-topic as I am not familiar with the rose at L’Hay, but I raised a seedling out of Micrugosa a number of years ago. It has produced 3 op seedlings for me. Two bloomed this past summer - the third has yet to bloom. If related to what you’re exploring let me know, I’ll post photos.
Stephen
Thanks Stephen! Yes that would definitely be interesting to see some pics and any comments you may have about growing true micrugosa seedlings, so I can compare with whatever it is I am growing here.
