Hi,
Today I collected some pollen in the wild from rosa rubiginosa and afterwards I saw a picture of rosa gallica complicata… Which made me wonder…
Are rosa gallica and rosa rubiginosa related species? They both have glands on there sepals and the sepals show a particular pattern.
What do you guys think?
That’s a great question. Supposedly R. rubiginosa is a very complex polyploid with multiple progenitor species and maybe R. gallica is one of them.
Rosa rubiginosa, according to Hurst’s analysis, is ABBCD. Each letter corresponds to a set of fifty traits that Hurst found to be associated in species growing around the world.
A, for example, includes all the Systylae and Indicae species. These species vary greatly, but agree in a large set of characters. B covers the diploid Pimpinellifoliae, while C is limited to rugosa, nitida and a few lesser known forms. D is represented by RR. cinnamomea, blanda, foliolosa, palustris and others. Finally, E is RR. macrophylla, corymbulosa, elegantula, elegantula, persetosa.
Considering the great differences among the species of some of these groups, polyploid species built up from them will also differ greatly, while also expressing the salient traits shared among the diploid species of each type.
In other words, a hybrid of Blanda and Multiflora will be very different from one raised by crossing Foliolosa and Moschata. Nevertheless, both hybrids will combine the traits of D and A.
An approximation of Rubiginosa might be had by crossing Gallica (AACC) and the alpine Pimpinellifolia (BBDD). This would not be a perfect match, it would need an extra dose of B (maybe from Willmottiae), and certainly would not duplicate the peculiar Caninae meiosis.
It is not at all certain that the polyploid species are derived from diploid species that currently exist. The ancestors might be quite different, though still sharing the large sets of characters. I would not care to guess whether Nitida or Rugosa is closer to the ancestral C type.
So Karl, could it be that the spines from rosa spinosissima have transformed somehow in rosa rubiginosa into glands, like a mutation of some sort?
A bit like what happened with the moss roses? Or where did the glands in those roses came from?
Page 3. Columns 7 and 9, but especially 9.
Two groups should stick out beyond the rest.
It doesn’t matter if they are related or not (not trying to be rude). What matters is what the traits on the clones you may have or may get have these unique traits to pass on. What also matters is that they breed very differently, with Rosa rubiginosa requiring extra thought on what to cross it with and which direction.
If you see those Rosa rubiginosa again, I would scan them for downy and powdery and see if any of the selections stand out against the rest in terms of resistance.
So, the short answer is they are not directly related. They may be indirectly related by history, but that it truly doesn’t matter unless you are someone that needs to put labels on boxes for the sake of it.