I only ask as Rosa Rubiginosa only seems to pass it’s apple fragrance via mother plants. It’s been a while since anyone has posted about this species rose and I have read everything on this forum about it. I was wondering if anyone had any success since the old posts ( a decade or more) in regards to breeding with it. Seems to be a tricky customer.
Or failing that… do you have it, does it set seed… have you even seen or smelt one?!
Todays harvest of the same spring hips and number (grand total of 3). I am going to stratify them first time in 20 years - never tried.
Biggest hip equals biggest seed and they physically look healty.
Cannot smell anything due to 5 cigars a day.
Unlike rubiginosa it doesn’t have the canina type unbalanced meiosis so it shouldn’t be "locked” to seed….but getting a properly named plant may be the issue, seems getting one of the other diploid pimp type species often happens from a lot of peoples reports.
I have a plant of “R. Primula” as sold in Australia but it doesn’t have scented foliage, there is some catalogue reference to one of the main sources of OGR/Species in Australia (who shut down a number of years ago) saying they had a hybrid of R. Primula so it seems that’s possibly what it really is here in Australia if the original imports (from the UK if I remember, the grandson I think, of the original importer to AU still operates but does not have anything from the original imports from the very early 1900’s) aren’t sitting hidden away in a garden somewhere.
If what is here is a hybrid as assumed, the foliage scent is easily blocked in at least some crosses. I have a number of OP seedlings germinating at the moment to see if any of those have foliage scent, if not they’ll be backcrossed with the mother plant (in a few years….slow) and if nothing turns up in that gen I’m likely to give up trying to recover the foliage scent 
Please keep this post updated with your potential successes!
Good to know it can pass both ways! (Hopefully). I will be buying a Primula to start trying to breed with it!
If you want the rubiginosa apple fragrance, you can use Goldbush, Applejack or Radsweet. They pass the fragrance as pollenparent. I’ve some seedlings that - when humid and warm - have the smell, but not as strong as an original rubi. I’ve got Magnifica also. This one is in the parentage of the above. She passed on her apple scent via pollen, but maybe it skipped a generation. I don’t know if Josef Rothmund has scented leaves. Rubi’s will not give of they’re scent on hot, dry days or on very cold days. I’ve got some in my garden and you can enjoy them on warm, humid days, after light rain in summer for instance. Maybe there is something similar with Rosa primula, not smelling all of the time?
