I’ve inquired in the distant past, but it warrants revisiting…
What species are you working with or interested in working with and why?
Obviously, many species have potential to help with disease-resistance, new foliage attributes, architecture, etc.
Please indicate what you have heard/observed about the species that intrigues you, and discuss potential pitfalls and considerations. For instance, it has been theorized that crossing healthy evergreens with healthy deciduous species can compromise two entirely different disease-coping strategies. Some species have a stronger propensity to have offspring with heavy flowering than others, etc…
I’m interested in some of the Synstyllae beyond just Wichuriana.
Banksia is very healthy here, though likely to have tender and mildew-prone offspring
A banksia/bracteata route seems appealing too. And throwing clinophylla into that mix has a certain intrigue as all are semi-tropical evergreens.
And I’ve seen that davidii is in the pedigree of several intriguing roses I’ve recently researched. (What is up with that species?)
I know little to nothing about others I want to play with including R. californica, R. setigera, and R. glauca. The first two figure into some mauve hybrids and have attractive cool-colored foliage, and of course, glauca is all about the foliage.
1. R.foliolosa: Paul Barden’s words inspired me to try it, and I have now kept one R.foliolosa seedling out of tons of 'em that sprouted from a ton of OP seed. This seedling is now roughly 12 months old… it flowered at 10 months one single cluster of 10 or so flowers on the end of only one of its canes…the other cane tips did not flower…flowers were of an extremely pale pink, a lot larger than other R.foliolosa flowers I have seen, and very fragrant and “antique looking”…oh, and it is prickly++++ and suckers crazy!! NO DM/PM/BS/rust…extremely vigorous growth, low growing…the foliage is a mat finish and of an unusual green, almost has a green plus grey look to it?? it is definitely a hybrid with some other rose nearby to the original mom rose (provenance of seed: the OP seed was sent to me by an Australian rose grower interstate - country Victoria). I am SOOOO thankful to Paul Barden for the inspiration his writings about this North American species gave me. I immediately mated it’s pollen from those very first flowers with a polyantha, and two hips are cooking ATM.
O:)
2. R.wichurana: - My plant appears to be a true species as verified by someone who knows their roses, near to me!!! (provenance: it is from a cutting sold to me by the nursery operator, who apparently discovered the original plant growing by a roadside at some NSW country cemetery location). I have it climbing a wall, there is no way there is enough space to have it rambling on the ground. It scares me to use it in breeding, it is too wild, too massive for my resources to handle. Dunno if I will ever use this one beyond a trial to see if it can make easy to produce and good workable rootstock.
3. R.clinophylla: Provenance of seed is from the Viraraghavans, India. The seedling I kept from that OP seed is not a species hybrid, it looks true to species. It is very wild and prickly, supposed to be good in hot and wet climates (which approximates the more tropical climates of Northern Australia to the north of me). I have used it as pollen parent on a polyantha mom, the seed is stratifying. My R.clinophylla seedling gets minimal PM and some BS. Not sure if I will actually persevere with this line of breeding, but it all depends on what the F1 show…and what sort of week I am having at the time I come to decide their fate LOL…
I thought I would show you a few of my specie crosses. I have been interested in fragrant foliage and so started using R. pulverulenta. I crossed this onto Hardinkum as it is reliable in producing plenty of seed which germinate well.
The result is a plant that looks very like the specie but has a much longer flowering period, bigger but paler flowers and fragrant foliage. I have used pollen from this rose again this season and look forward to the possibility of seedlings as so far I have not been able to take it any further.
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Mike, the shot you have presented is beautiful. I guess the questions will come thick and fast. Could you elaberate a bit more to me the novice of the cross and the 2 you mentioned please.
Species roses that we use/have used in our program:
R. wichuraiana-thornless (from Dr. Basye). Why-because it’s thornless! Can there be a better reason!!! Sorry…because it’s thornless, has great black spot resistace, diploid and it grows very well in our area.
R. cymosa (grown from seed collected in China). It shows great disease resistance (both black spot and powdery mildew) and grows very well in our area. Pitfall: We tried for several years to use this as both a male and a female parent and never got anything to set. May be because we were trying to pollinate it outside (most of our work is in the greenhouse). May be because we were trying to cross it onto ‘extremely’ unrelated things.
86-3 (R. banksaie-BASYE x R.laevigata-BASYE). An amphidiploid created by Dr. Basye. It has very good resistance to black spot and great resistance to powdery mildew. We actually haven’t used this plant is awhile because we created a few ‘advanced’ hybrids from it and are now using those as parents in our breeding program. Pitfall: Very thorny and has sparse foliage.
86-7 (R. wich-thornless x R. rugosa rubra). An amphidiploid created by Dr. Basye. It’s a very thorny ground cover that unfortunatley transmits powdery mildew susceptibality. However, it does have decent Black Spot resistance. No success using it as a female, works much better as a male parent.
We have a bunch of roses created for genetic work. (R. wich-thless x Old Blush) I guess you would consider this a species. We’ve move a few generations away from the original cross and now how everbloomers to work with. Out of the hundereds of progeny created for this mapping population we picked a few that had ‘desirable’ characteristics we wanted to try and pass on. Such as increased flower number and decreased thorn density…
At one time we had some R. wich-thless x R. xanthina crosses we tried to use. The actual hybrid was created before I started working here, so I’m uncertain why this progeny was created. They no longer exist becuase they refused to root and struggled during our summers. I suspect it would be difficut to use due to the wide cross issues.
There’s a lot more I’d like to add, but just don’t have time right now…
Thanks for the comments. I am quite pleased with this little rose so far. Health and vigour is great and the flowering is for a very long period, several months over summer. It grows to about a meter high. I have not had the opportunity to use it much so far. I do have some OP hips to work with and also some planned crosses using this ones pollen. These I am keen to see as the season rolls along as the Pulverulenta characteristics are very strong and I expect some repeat flowering amoung the seedlings.
The other seedling I mentioned but didn’t show is a cross from R. Glauca x applejack. Another cross toward my goal of fragrant foliage. I have been very fortunate as this seedling is the ideal mix of these two plants. The foliage is very similar looking to Glauca only larger. The blooms are large and pale pink and the apple scent of the leaves is very strong. I can not find my pictures of the plant which I was hoping to show you. I guess they are on the old PC? So far the seedlings I have using pollen from this plant have been very dull indeed. I have quite a few applejack decendants now so this spring I will cross those with the most fragrant foliage and hope for repeat flowering.
I keep looking at my seedlings in their germination bins, wondering which ones could possibly has Rosa canina x Baby Love as the pollen parent, lol.
I think there is like 1000 germinations (seriously, thats like 900 too many) from Yellow Brick Road alone, so at least some should be partial canina hybrids.
My focus is bringing better disease resistance and hardiness into the miniature class. I’d love to see more use of healthy minis in landscaping. I’m using species hybrids with resistant/tolerant minis and hope to have some successes.
‘Rosa fedtschenkoana Regel’ through Paul Barden’s tetraploid ‘54-08-08’. Midnight Blue x (Orangeade ® × R. fedtschenkoana Regel)
R. glauca through ‘Ruglauca’. (Rugosa #3 × R. glauca) x Unknown…an OP seedling really.
Mike, I’m guessing you’ve been already welcomed to the forum. Thanks for your post. Love the idea of what you’re doing.
I have little experience with the fragrant foliage roses (though I briefly had a rose I assume to have been R. primula, and which was wonderful to smell on damp mornings). I have not experienced R. glutinosa (err… pulverulenta – had to look that species up!) myself, but have heard others speak of it. Congrats.
Natalie, I didn’t know there was a tetraploid fortuniana out there… What did Basye do to his plants to create so many alloploids?? I would love to work with the thornless Wich., but I don’t think Old Blush would have been a first choice to cross for me. Dunno why not though.
Since the idea of banksiae appeals to me so much – I’m in the same climate as you – I had wondered about R. cymosa as well. I wondered how heavily she bloomed, and if one could up-the-display a little with the appropriate cross. R. b. lutescens, with its yellow blooms is the real one I’m wanting to pursue in the banksiae tribe, however. I could see her crossed with Baby Love, or if I have to sweat the ploidy, maybe yellow fairy… Then again, I believe I’ve heard that the banksiae have their best chances with roses with lots of china in 'em, no? Maybe a Moore mini yellow? (I believe chinas figured very heavily into the first minis…) I wonder if that would be a good route for R. cymosa too(?).
Rob, you have some very interesting crosses there. I would love to see what might come of a Skinners Red Leaf descendant mixed with R. fedtschenkoana lines. I’m enjoying the lavender to coral-pink overtones on the stems and peduncles of SRLP. I’m not familiar with your lines beyond the online images, and reputed hardiness.
Does anyone have first-hand experience with R. davidii??
One of the plans for SRLP this season is to cross it with a couple very fertile minis with the hopes that some of the F1s will exhibit the glauca leaf color. I would then cross those with some of the R. fedtschenkoana hybrids that I have from young F1s from Paul’s OP ‘54-08-08’ fedt hybrid. These have nice leaf color.
Last year’s seedlings of R. glutinosa leafed out this week, which was a relief because I didnt want to lose any to the long winter. I think it will be many years before even using them in hybridizing will be a reality.
It’s my understanding that Dr. Basye would make a cross (say R.bank x R.laev), germinate the seed and then choose which progeny displayed the best potential. Once he made the selection, (I’m assuming) he’d allow the plant to grow a bit. Once it was vigorously growing, he’d add a dilute solution of colchicine to the apical meristem. I don’t know much more than that. I don’t know if he applied the solution more than once to the same section of stem and if he did how often he would reapply…
I do know that if he felt a section was actually doubled, he’d have the chromosome number counted to confirm his suspicion.
If you’re interested in using Cymosa, then you need to drive over and collect the buds for pollen. It’s flowering (up a storm!) now. I’d offer to send it to you, but we’re so busy I don’t know when I’d have a chance…
Some day, Natalie, I’d love to pop over and see your operation, if that is doable, but I don’t see myself taking on the 5 hour round-trip this spring, thanks. Besides, I still need to get my existing roses settled in so that they will actually start performing! I have too many pots to manage in a Central Texas summer!
Wichurana, bracteata, clinophylla, davidii var. elongata, virginiana, gigantea, rugosa… and a few others…
Two new species to arrive here soon are R. transmorisonensis and pricei… can’t wait for these!
I have a question relating to setigera. I have a male plant of setigera and have seed in my current season’s ‘about to stratify bag’ that is ‘Immensee’ x ‘setigera’… to bring wichurana together with setigera with remontancy thrown into the mix. If setigera has separate male and female plants… how does this affect the hybrids? Do they end up dioecious or hermaphroditic or something in between?
Oh, joy… I hadn’t realized that R. setigera was cryptically dioecious. Does anyone know the gender of the setigera serena strain from Vintage? Or do I just have to sit and wait and see if it creates hips and devine which way I should cross it from that point?
The two that have produced the best seedlings are R. roxburghii normalis and R. rugosa rubra. I also use some first generation species hybrids. One that has produced great seedlings is Schoener’s Nutkana. Three species that I plan to try for the first time this year:
R. webbiana - 3’ to 6’ shrub with fragrant pink blooms native to the western Himalayas. Hardy to zone 4. In section Cinnamomae with R. rugosa, R. moyesii, and most North American rose species.
R. rubus - A large sprawling shrub or climber with clusters of fragrant white flowers native to China. In section Synstylae with R. multiflora, R. moschata, R. wichurana, R. soulieana, etc.
R. transmorrisonensis - A dwarf evergreen shrub with white blooms native to the mountains of Taiwan and the Philippines. In section Sericeae with R. sericea pteracantha.
The first two have been disease free in my garden. The third one has mildewed, but I think that it was stressed from insufficient water. I’m hoping it will be healthier when it is happier.