Several years ago I got some ‘Flora McIvor’ open pollinated seeds from Henry Kuska. FM is a R. eglanteria hybrid. The seedlings grew and are at my parents. I raised a seedling from one of these plants and it flowered for the first time this spring. I have this seedling at home in St. Paul, MN planted in a somewhat shady place and away from other roses. This seedling has relatively large flowers for a R. eg hybrid (as does FM, ~3"). It is a beautiful single blush white. It set a lot of hips which are full of seed. I suspect the hips are from self-pollination, but they may not be. I have several tetraploid modern shrubs in the front yard ~40 feet away. I confirmed that this seedling is tetraploid and that the pollen it generates is typical of pollen containing two sets of chromosomes. R. eglanteria is usually a pentaploid and is in the section Canina of roses which has unusual meiosis. It typically has four sets of chromosomes in the egg and one in the pollen to maintain the 5x status. Anyway, perhaps this seedling would be a valuable link to get R. eglanteria characteristics into modern tetraploid roses.
This seedling has larger leaves than typical for R. eglanteria and they are relatively glossy and do not possess the apple-scent of the species. The plant is tall and has the same climbing, large shrub growth habit with arching canes as does the species (may be good for breeding climbers). It is also quite shade tolerant.
If you want open-pollinated seeds of this rose please E-mail me your address and I’ll send them off to you.
Sincerely,
David Zlesak