It is beautiful. Love the buds.
Rob, I think this is what people would refer to as glandular instead of mossing… has a nice pine-needle like fragrance and when you look at each of the projetions in very closely you can see a drop of oil on the end of it. Yes, it’s a multiflora hybrid. It will finish flowering in a few weeks (pretty sure it will be once flowering) and as it finishes I’m expecting it to start throwing long arching basal canes that will lay down and start to build up a sizeable mound… at this point I’m half expecting it be many times bigger than it already is in a few years time. I’m expecting it to make masses of OP hips and I’m also expecting it will take most pollens I put on it and that the seeds will be tiny and will germinate like weeds 
I’m thinking ‘Euphrates’ pollen might also be good on this if they can synch their flowering.
Hey Simon,
Very nice, I can see the great potential with this one. I wonder what you’d get crossing it back to your purple mini?
Jim Sproul
Sounds like a good idea too Jim There’s quite a lot of different ways to go with it I think… looking forward to playing over the next few weeks
Hi Simon, I agree that this one should be useful in many directions. Though pink, it seems to have that pink coloring suggestive of underlying purple that I have seen in many of the ‘Midnight Blue’ seedlings.
Best wishes with it!
Jim Sproul
I dunno. I am assuming it is a thin line between resinous and mossed. Mossing, to me, seems largely just an over-accentuation of traits already in existance. It reminds me of the difference between our lips and Angelina Jolie’s lips (which are oddly natual, see youth photos) – or even that dude that played in Inception (Tom Hardy). So, we all have lips (I hope) but the level at which they are played out or formed can vary widely. We see mossing as a trait in which creates an entirely new class of rose – but does it really? Is it not just an accentuation (prickles, glands, sepal lenth, etc, whatever) on top of everything else?
Is it not just an accentuation (prickles, glands, sepal lenth, etc, whatever) on top of everything else?
It’s a really good question. From an observational standpoint anyone familiar with mossing knows it when they see and smell it. For breeding we need to define the trait more specifically.
Mossing seems to be composed of two phenomenon.
The first is the presence of glandular trichomes that produce resin distinctive from most other roses in both its quantity and in the content and quality of odiferous compounds that it contains. That is to say, there is more resin than usual and it contains more of certain types of chemical compounds.
The second is that the trichomes exhibit branched growth patterns, rather than the usual single-stalk type of growth seen in other roses with glandular trichomes.
I’ll send along a paper I found recently that contains an enlightening discussion of the genetic regulation which underlies the formation of glandular trichomes in model plants such as rape, snapdragon and tobacco. It gives some tantalizing clues for developing a breeding strategy directed at tailoring mossing characteristics.
That’d be pretty cool to see, Don.
I would love to see different species glandular traits mixed with moss types because the best thing about moss types is that they are a very sensate experience where you can pass by, feel the odd mossy buds and then smell your fingers. If it is hot and humid enough outside, you can even smell the moss by just standing nearby. Scarlet Moss, for example, smells like cinnamon to me. What else can be created? Simon says his hybrid smells like pine needles. I have heard of many other scents from rose resin. And there is no saying that combining contrasting scents will not just repeat the same known scents.
btw, I forgot who was aiming for a modern yellow crested moss, but I am thinking that they may as well combine yellow moss with canina because I think that is where the crested sepal trait originates. I am not saying that the usual route of using the Crested series would not work, but I am saying that either route is likely to have an equal success rate.
I’m not clear on the difference between moss and glandular trichomes. Does anyone know of a source that has closeup pictures?
Rob, moss is glandular trichomes, just more, bigger better ones than non-mossed roses have.
Michael, check your email.
Thanks Don. That makes it much more clear.
Don, thanks for the readng material. I have started reading it and will make my way through it as time permits.
Your comment on the vigour of moss roses being a function of a possible reduction in stomates is interesting. I’ve got a few moss seedlings coming up and I just thought they were unthrifty and most were binned… only have one left actually from OP ‘Henri Martin’ seed that is beginning to make some nice foliage… no flowers yet in its second year. Maybe, once vegetative growth takes off and stomata are produced in greater numbers, on the undersides of the leaves, then maybe that’s when they get their kick along??? I’ve noticed with my moss parents (mainly ‘Henri Martin’ and ‘William Lobb’) that when new plants are put in the garden they seem to take a long time to establish and then they will explode as foliage production reaches a critical mass. ‘Henri Martin’ literally went from a 2ft square plant to an 8ft square plant in one season during it’s third year in the ground. ‘William Lobb’ has been two years in the ground and is still settling in making sparsely foliaged long canes with a recent flush of basal growth just appearing in the last 2-3 weeks. This might be why I’m battling adventitious shoots from the understock’s roots on ‘William Lobb’ as the grafted portion is sending poor vigour signals to the roots which keep sending up suckers from the roots because it ‘thinks’ it’s going to die. ‘Henri Martin’ did this too until it got huge. It’s all very interesting. Maybe I need to keep my moss seedlings longer than my other ones to get them ‘over the hump’ before I start evalualting them… Maybe the best, most and heavily mossed seedlings will be the ones that we might otherwise bin due to a lack of get-up-and-go?
Hi dDon, no luck. Either RHA email or my own personal email hate me lately. Please try reallyseriousface at gmail dot com
Thanks
Really serious face? College will do that to you.
Your comment on the vigour of moss roses being a function of a possible reduction in stomates is interesting.
My conjectures are highly speculative so be careful about jumping to conclusions.
Since we are discussing this on the messageboard I have posted a link to the online source of the paper so others can follow along. The formal citation is
Glover BJ, Perez-Rodriguez M, Martin C, Development of several epidermal cell types can be specified by the same MYB-related plant transcription factor
Development 125, 3497-3508 (1998).
To recap, Glover found that the formation of glandular trichomes in tobacco and snapdragon is partly under the control of a gene called MIXTA. This gene causes certain cells in the plant epidermis to become either glandular trichomes or (in petals) conical cells. It turns out that the cells involved might otherwise develop into stomata. In their model systems, plants that developed lots of trichomes had many fewer stomata. Since stomata are necessary for photosynthesis to occur, I conjectured that a reduced number of stomata might retard plant growth resulting in less vigorous seedlings.
This suggested to me that it might be worth comparing the numbers of stomata and also growth rates of roses that are mossed with those that are not.
I thought it was also interesting that cells under MIXTA control go on to become trichomes on leaves and stems but they become conical cells on petals (conical cells are partly responsible for the glistening appearance of petals ). Mossing, when it occurs, does not appear on petals and this further differentiation to conical cells rather than trichomes explains why. Could we expect, though, that sometimes things go awry and we might find mossed petals? It’s something I’m keeping my eyes out for.
The study of plant epidermal cell differentiation has progressed in the decade since this paper was published. Over the winter I’m hoping to read up on it more but for starters I found another, more general paper by Glover titled Differentiation in Plant Epidermal Cells. Here is the URl:
Here is a link to the first paper:
haha, its a gmail because I am going to get a google phone. Reallyseriousface and seriousbusiness are expressions we use to mock those that treat business like it is the 2nd coming every single day, especially those in customer service that have no place being around other people. Its also used in sarcasm. ie. you can tell a joke with a straight face as if you are being informative and then follow up with something dumb like, “Its alright if you dont understand, its only serious business.” haha
If you watch this 1995 youtube Macintosh "Serious Business" Commercial - YouTube you can see how it began as generational thing.
Im gonna read in detail later but for now I remember day lilies and how the tetraploid ones that the exhibitors called “diamond dusted” have that petal glistening affect in such an exaggerated way.