Species-Modern Crosses

Rose Genetics Ploidy Level
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61

Well, in the case of “spasmodic reblooming becoming reliable reblooming by means of bud selection”, I think epigenetic factors progressively “silencing” the normal non-remontant copy of that gene were at play. I’m not sure if methylation is something that works the same in plants as it does in animals, but if it does, that could be an explanation. In that case, even though there is one “normal” copy of the gene for which reblooming is a mutation, its expression becomes suppressed as a result of inherited changed structure of the DNA – like having a box blocking one of two doors, forcing traffic to flow through the other. The “door” hasn’t changed, but something gets in the way of it being used. If this is “a thing” that can occur in plants – as it does in animals – it can explain the unexpected reblooming or not-reblooming offspring that have occurred.

:slight_smile:

~Christopher

62

Christopher,
Epigenetic regulation is definitely a “thing” in plants.

In addition, there was a genetic study of F1 “hybrid” corn where the two inbred strains carried different alleles at a specific locus. In some years, the maternal allele was expressed, but the paternal counterpart was silenced. In other years, only the paternal was expressed. And in still other years, both alleles were expressed.

In interspecific and intergeneric hybrids there are instances of maternal OR paternal OR both expressions in the F1 generation. Here’s a bibliography of some.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Heredity/King/Election-Variegation.html

I must add that “variegation” also occurs in some of these cases, particularly where expression of both parental traits cannot “average out”. For example, the Trifoliate orange crossed with the common orange yields some few offspring that attempt an intermediate condition. Some leaves are simple, some trifoliate, and some have only one side leaflet (stipule).

Similarly, hybrids of raspberry (cap separates from core) and blackberry (cap remains attached) are often unstable in the expression of attachment: some caps slip off the core, some are attached, some are half-atached, etc.

We see this kind of unstable (or variegated) expression in some roses. The Brownells wrote, “An illustration of this is the variety Orange Everglow in which these two types of blooming habit are present and segregated. Certain confirmation lies in the fact that if the once-blooming cane-growth is not removed it may by its vigor smother and prevent the establishment of reblooming wood.”
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/BrownellClimber1944.html

Beaton (1815) gave another example:
“No one seems to like Gloire de Rosamene for a bed; but by a particular management it makes a splendid bedder, indeed the very richest of all the roses. For bedding, this rose should be treated as a biennial, and no more; that is, to put in cuttings of it every year in April (they will root anywhere, if you stick them firm in the ground), and to plant them in the flower-bed next March, or whenever the bed is ready for them in the spring. Then, from the first of June to the end of August, every shoot which looks very strong, and is likely to run away with the sap, as gardeners say, must be stopped when it is six inches long. In this way all the shoots over a whole bed need not differ much in strength, and they will not stop from flowering in July or August, as this rose is apt to do when older plants are used. After the beds have done flowering in December, the plants must be disposed of, for all the gardeners in the country could not make a regular bed of them the second season”
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Heredity/Beaton/BeatonBedRoses1851.html

And we should not forget the unstable Rosa foetida bicolor/lutea that changes from one version to the other at long and irregular intervals. I have read of another variant that was even more unstable, switching between lutea and bicolor repeatedly in each flower, giving striped or sectored petals. Any striped rose is an example of this instability.

Some further reading:
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Heredity/Serra/serra3.htm#B
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Heredity/King/Epigenetics.html
http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(05)00653-7

63

I can’t read German, and the Google translation leaves much to be desired. That said, I interpret Kordes’ statement, “The susceptibility to mildew and rose rust was easy to eliminate, here was enough the used by many breeders Rosa multiflora, to come to virtually immune varieties.”, to suggest that selected offspring were resistant. In other words, the resistance may not be due to a “unit character”.

Burbank (1914) wrote similarly:

I make it the invariable rule, whatsoever the plant with which I am working, to examine the seedlings attentively from time to time, to note whether any of them give evidence of infection by mildew or any fungous growth.

And any seedling that is seen to be subject to mildew is at once destroyed, regardless of the value of its other qualities.

http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Heredity/Burbank/Burbank_roses/Burbank_roses.html

The San Jose Heritage Garden is not the place to study blackspot resistance, but there is plenty of mildew. I sometimes saw it on the Grootendorst sports despite their Rugosa ancestry. But ‘Apple Blossom’ seemed to be as perfectly resistant to mildew (at least to the local strains) as one could hope. I once saw mildew on the tip of one branch, but it was in a position where it might have been damaged by a passerby. So, if someone has a burning desire to get Multiflora into a breeding line, this would be one place to start.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/Rose_Pictures/A/appleblossom.html

64

It is important, I think, to recognize physiological races/species, despite efforts of some academic botanists to lump diverse populations into “manuscript species”.

For example:

The Botanical Gazette 96(2): 207 (1934)
EXPERIMENTAL DATA FOR A REVISION OF THE NORTH AMERICAN WILD ROSES
EILEEN WHITENEAD ERLANSON
3. HARDINESS AND CLIMATIC TOLERANCE.-Cultures at the Botanical Gardens of the University of Michigan showed that some of the roses of the Pacific Coast region were only partially hardy in southern Michigan. > R. californica, R. pisocarpa, > and > R. gymnocarpa > grew very slowly, seldom flowered, and were often cut back by frost or winter killed. > R. woodsii > was very variable in this respect. Plants or seedlings from British Columbia, Washington, the Rocky Mountains, and the Great Plains thrive in Michigan. Plants or seedlings from the arid Great Basin persisted in Michigan but were stunted; they lost their leaves during the summer drought and never flowered. These two physiologically different groups within > R. woodsii > show a parallel series of variations, and cannot be distinguished morphologically.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/Erlanson/ErlansonRevision1934.pdf

Academic botanists might see no reason to acknowledge the physiological races of R. woodsii, but the differences should be of great interest to rose breeders.

Soil varies greatly in its qualities: pH, texture, depth and so on. Adaptation to these qualities involve traits that are as important to evolution and to plant breeding as any morphological traits.

Fernald (1918) described two species allied to R. blanda, and endemic to the “calcareous area to the north and northwest, however, from the St. John valley in Maine to Gaspé and Anticosti.” He named these R. johannensis and R. Williamsii. In 1948 he added Rosa Rousseauiorum Boivin. In addition to its physiological adaptation, there is a distinctive trait: “in maturity the sepals … become reflexed against the fruit, the very striking character which distinguishes this species, R. Williamsii Fernald and R. johannensis Fernald from R. blanda, in which the sepals form a porrect beak at summit of the fruit.”
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/FernaldRosa1918.html
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/FernaldMinorRosa1948.html

More recently we find what I regard as careless lumping.

Bruneau, A., Joly, S., Starr, J. R., and Drouin, J. N. 2005. Molecular markers indicate that the narrow Québec endemics Rosa rousseauiorum and Rosa williamsii are synonymous with the widespread Rosa blanda. Canadian Journal of Botany, 83: 386–398.
ABSTRACT
Rosa rousseauiorum > Boivin and > Rosa williamsii > Fern. are two rare roses in eastern Québec, whose taxonomic status is controversial. Morphological characters alone do not clearly differentiate these two taxa from each other or from the morphologically variable and widespread > Rosa blanda > Ait. We evaluated the taxonomic status of these two taxa, and of two other > R. blanda > segregates, > Rosa subblanda > Rydb. and > Rosa johannensis > Fern., through an analysis of RAPD, ISSR, and AFLP markers. We surveyed 86 individuals from 36 populations in eastern North America. Despite a high degree of polymorphism, principal coordinate analyses and the weighted pair group method with arithmetic averaging suggest no clustering of individuals that correspond to taxonomic boundaries. However, the closely related > Rosa palustris > Marsh. is clearly differentiated from the > R. blanda > s.l. taxa. When populations of > R. blanda > west of Québec are included, the principal coordinate analyses and Mantel tests indicate the presence of a significant east–west geographic gradient. Analyses of molecular variation suggest that most of the observed variation occurs within taxa, rather than among taxa. A weak inter-taxon variation is nonetheless significant for RAPD and ISSR data, and a weak pattern dependent on geographical location is evident within the province of Québec. In accordance with studies based on morphological characters, molecular data indicate that > R. rousseauiorum > and > R. williamsii > should not be considered as species distinct from > R. blanda.

To rose breeders, it makes a great deal of difference whether a species/race is adapted to alkaline soil (e.g., R. rousseauiorum, R. johannensis, R. williamsii) or to acid/slightly calcareous soil (e.g., R. nitida, R. blanda, R. palustris), regardless of what academic botanists have to say.

65

Rosa rugosa is making me a little crazy. Rather, opinions regarding the various plants that have been identified as R. rugosa are more than a little confusing.

I have previously mentioned that the Russian Rugosas are hardier and more drought tolerant than the Japanese forms. But are they really?

The American Cockerell: A Naturalist’s Life, 1866-1948 (2000) Page 104
Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell, ‎William Alfred Weber

Almost the first thing we noticed, on getting off the train at Okeanskaja [Siberia], was an abundance of the familiar > Rosa rugosa > of our gardens. Here it is a wild plant, and it was very interesting to see that it was confined to the immediate coast, its thick leaves being an adaptation to maritime conditions, though retained when it is artificially grown inland. Maack, who explored the Ussuri country long ago, and collected the flora extensively, evidently did not visit the coast, for he did not get Rosa rugosa at all, but only species then referred to as > R. cinnamomea > and > R. acicularis> , very similar to our wild roses of the Rocky Mountains… I looked for parasitic fungi on the > R. rugosa > at Okeanskaja, but found only a very sparing infestation, which Dr. Arthur tells me is > Phragmidium rosae-rugosae > Kasai, so far as it is possible to determine from the aecial stage alone.



Nature, Volume 117, Issue 2945, pp. 517 (1926).
Evolution of Rosa
Cockerell, T. D. A.
Thus the diploid > R. rugosa> , which I found to be a strictly sea-coast plant in Siberia, is a well-defined type specially adapted to its peculiar habitats but not extending even a few miles inland.

So, it now seems to me that the garden varieties of Russian Rugosas are not “pure” R. rugosa. The drought tolerance of those garden varieties may come from R. davurica (formerly included in R. cinnamomea), while the distinctive leaves are from R. rugosa. The enhanced hardiness, of course, is common to both putative parents.

The advantage of these Russian Rugosas for rose breeders is much the same as the hybrids of R. rugosa and R. blanda that Percy Wright recommended.

66

Karl,

Let’s keep in mind some of the origins of the collected Siberian Rosa rugosa that was established in the U.S. aren’t definitely known.

For example, Dr. N.E. Hansen stated he imported the “Siberian form” of Rosa rugosa from the St Petersburg Botanic Garden in the late 1890’s. But we don’t know for sure if the plants producing the seeds originally came from Siberian.

"Hey, Vladimir! Remember that nutty horticulture professor from South Dakota? He wants Rosa rugosa seeds from Siberia, but we don’t have any.

"Listen, Igor! What have I told you before? If we don’t have it, collect the next best thing and label it as requested. Now get over to the Rosa rugosa we obtained from Kew Gardens and collect its hips.

Stupid Amerikans! They won’t notice the difference.

“And pass me that bottle of vodka. I’m thirsty.”

Don’t tell me these things haven’t happened before in horticulture!

As far as “garden varieties” of Russian Rugosas, you will have to mention which ones you are talking about. Are you referring to Rosa rugosa ‘Kamchatica’, for example?

In the case of Rosa rugosa ‘Kamchatica’, I don’t think there has been a controlled study indicating it’s more cold hardier than a common Rosa rugosa shrub is.

“The advantage of these Russian Rugosas for rose breeders is much the same as the hybrids of R. rugosa and R. blanda that Percy Wright recommended.”

What advantage? If you are referring to cold hardiness, let’s keep in mind the disadvantages. Mainly, of course, the loss of repeat bloom in first generation seedlings but also a loss of disease resistance. Still, I 'd like to see more work combining Rosa rugosa and R. woodsii to develop more forms of Rosa rugosa hybrids, especially ones having a more attractive cane colour. It’s certainly something I do every year.

67

There is probably more truth that poetry in what you’ve written, Paul!

68

Paul,
Prof. Budd made the trip, and distributed some of the more interesting Rugosas he collected.

Trans. Iowa State Hort. Soc for 1892 (27: 235-237, 1893)
Future of Roses in the Northwest
Prof J. L. Budd, Ames
“In 1882, the writer was much surprised to find varied forms of > Rosa rugosa > in Central Russia, even as far north as Kazan, on the Volga. Some of the best of these varieties were introduced and have been disseminated by the Agricultural College at Ames. These introductions have much interest in the way of showing that the great hardiness of the so-called Japan varieties of the rugosa came from the fact that their natal home was in North Central Asia. They are also superior to the Japan sorts on account of being less rampant in growing, with softer outlines, handsomer leaves and handsomer flower buds and flowers. Also some of them are hardier in the far north than those first introduced. The great success of Mr. Carman in crossing this interesting species has led us to extended work in this same line. During the past season we have crossed the blossoms of our best rugosa varieties, both single and half double, with the pollen of the best varieties grown at Des Moines and St. Louis in plant-house and in open air. With the crosses from Gen. Jacqueminot and other fine dark roses we have had fine success, as we have had also with some of our finest white and pink roses of the Hybrid Perpetual and Tea strains.”
Budd: Future of Roses in the Northwest (1893)



The Canadian Horticulturist 7(12): 286 (Dec 1884)
ROSA RUGOSA
At the botanical gardens on the Volga the opinion was expressed that the species was indigenous to North Bokhara, and the plains of Asia west of the Altai ranges. However this may be, it is, and has been for ages, a favorite species on the East plain of Europe, and we have the best reason for believing that its varieties will take leading rank over our great plains in the near future. I will only add that the interminable prairies north of the Carpathian Mountains, and the Caucasus in Europe, have many varieties of the rose, with thick coriaceous leaves, like the rugosa, not known in this country, and which do not seem to be known in South Europe.
Budd: Rosa rugosa (1884)

I can only wonder about what happened in earlier times, when people first brought the reblooming Rugosas from the sea-side (mentioned by Cockerell) and carried the plants to drier gardens where they may have hybridized with R. davurica, perhaps, or any other drought tolerant species and cultivars that might have been around. F2 seedlings and backcrosses could have combined desirable features of the Rugosas with helpful traits of the other species, long before any academic botanists began exploring the region and identifying the garden varieties as this species or that. Or are there really Rugosas growing wild in dry areas?
Karl

69

Karl,

One thing we definitely know is that Rosa rugosa is only native to East Asian temperate climate sea shores. The shrub, of course, having thick leaves is tolerant of salt spray, heavy rains and high winds.

It’s possible some of these Russian Rosa rugosa populations were interspecific hybrids, but if that’s the case it’s likely they would have only been once blooming and having less attractive foliage, so Mr. Budd wouldn’t have collected this material. It’s possible, of course, that F2 seedlings could have been developed that could have restored repeat blooming, but there is no evidence that happened.

One thing to keep in mind, is that Russia has virtually no history of developing roses using its native species. Actually, it has a poor history developing roses, period.

In the 1800’s, apparently Russia imported Rosa rugosa from German nurseries, so I suspect this is where some if not all the so called Russian Rosa rugosa came from.

If the Russian Rosa rugosa material was so superior to the “Japan sorts”, why hasn’t it been maintained for further breeding? It’s unlikely it was, of course.

By the way, the Sitka rose (Rosa rugosa) didn’t originate from Russia, as folklore suggests it did. An early report from an Alaska agriculture experimental station said it came from Canada. Some of this material also may have came from Japan.

I’ll bet all of our Rosa rugosa with the likely exception of Rosa rugosa kamchatica originated from Japan.

70

Paul,
I can’t argue with you because I have few facts beyond what Budd wrote. I did learn that ‘Kaisern des Nordens’ was distributed by the Petersburg Botanical Garden. Rosenzeitung 9(4): 74 (1894)

Of course, this does not prove that the variety originated there.

KdN was the seed parent of ‘Germanica’, which in turn became a parent of ‘Conrad Ferdinand Meyer’. David Austin used CFM in breeding.

‘Hansa’ is probably one of the “Russian” Rugosas, though its ancestry has not been identified. It has also been used for breeding hardy, reblooming roses.
Karl

71

I also should mention Rosa ferox, which has sometimes been regarded as a synonym for R. rugosa.

According to the Botanical Register vol 5, no. 420 (1819), R. ferox is, “Native of Mount Caucasus, and introduced in 1796 by Messrs. Lee and Kennedy, of the Hammersmith nursery.”
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/Rose_Pictures/Rosa/R_ferox.html

Karl

72

Karl,

I did some further research regarding ‘Kaisern des Nordens’ (and ‘Hansa’).

‘Kaisern des Nordens’ is the same as Rosa rugosa flore plena or ‘Regeliana Flore Plena’, which was introduced by Professor Eduard August Von Regel in 1879. He was a botanist/nurseryman (Regal & Kesselring) and ended his career as Director of the Imperial Botanical Garden located at St. Petersburg.

According to HMF, this Rugosa was “Grown from a batch of rugosa seed sent to St. Petersburg by K.J. Maximowicz and thought to be a spontaneous cross of Rosa rugosa and Rosa davurica.”

Karl Johann Maximowicz (Maximovich) was born a Baltic-German, and became a Russian botanist and plant explorer. He did a lot of plant exploration in the Far East, including Japan.

I suggest there is a good possibility this Rugosa seed was obtained by Mr. Maximowicz in a garden where Rosa rugosa and R. davurica were growing. Or perhaps in a location where Rosa rugosa was established by a gardener and R. davurica was growing nearby.

In any case, the term “Russian Rosa rugosa”’ is misleading, since this species isn’t indigenous to the interior of the country, and it’s unlikely any of this material came from the east Siberian seashore. Again, it’s likely the Rosa rugosa of this material ultimately originated from Japan.

‘Hansa’ - it originated from the Schaum and Van Tol Nursery, Boskoop, Holland. Named for the Hansa Nursery also located at Boskoop? Introduced in 1905, I find it’s relatively quick development interesting, since Rosa rugosa was re-introduced to Europe in the 1870’s after being initially introduced in 1796.

I’ve speculated that ‘Hansa’ derived from a semi-double Rosa rugosa that self-polliunated.

‘Hansa’, of course, has a good record for breeding cold hardy Rugosas. It should have been used, particularly by Canadians, much more than it was in breeding programs. I continue to use it and always will.

73

Going off on a tangent…

I can’t get my Hansa to set hips at all.

74

I have found a couple of interesting notes on Rosa ferox and R. kanchatica.
Rosarum monographia (1820) p. 2
John Lindley
“M. Thory has strangely confounded it with R. kamchatica, which he considers has been brought to be R. ferox by cultivation. How improbable is such a change must be sufficiently evident to any one who has carefully seen the two in a living state. Besides the distinction in the arms on which their specific character is founded, I may add that R. kamchatica is a taller plant than R. ferox; its leaves are opaque, not shining, smaller, and with a different outline, changing colour and falling off in the very beginning of autumn, long before those of R. ferox are withered; its fruit is also smaller and shorter than the sepals, which do not appear to have any disposition to become compound. In R. ferox, on the contrary, the calyx is more frequently compound than otherwise; in more than one instance I have observed the segments so much divided that two were perfect leaves; the others becoming less obviously so in the order of the old distich.”

Further on, he wrote of R. kamchatica, “It flowers most part of the summer at irregular intervals.”

And in the Botanical Register, 5. no 419. Rosa kamchatica
“It is remarkable that this species should have been hitherto placed in the vicinity of Rosa cinnamomea, which it does not resemble in the least, and that it should at the same time have been separated widely from Rosa ferox, which it approaches so nearly that the two can scarcely be discriminated by any describable permanent character, and yet no two species can be more truly distinct.”

If the original R. kamchatica was a hybrid of R. davurica and R. ferox/rugosa, and supposing that some of the botanists raised their plants from seeds gathered in other botanical gardens, then it is not surprising that some of the offspring resembled Davurica (of the Cinnamomea group) while others favored the Ferox/Rugosa ancestor.

At any rate, it is worth mentioning again that Lindley’s R. kamchatica flowered repeatedly.
Karl

75

I have not been able to find anything definite about the parentage of ‘Hansa’. Was it bred by Schaum and Van Tol or merely introduced by them?

This is of some interest because of the two Rugosas named ‘Germanica’.

Roseraie de l’Hay (Seine): Catalogue, 1902
5405. Germanica (Dr Müller 1900) violet foncé
5406. Germanica, var. B. (Dr Müller 1890) violet rouge.

The single-flowered variety from 1890 was the parent of ‘Conrad Ferdinand Meyer’, ‘Rose à Parfum de l’Hay’ and other hybrids.

The double-flowered ‘Germanica’ of 1900 seems to have vanished, unless it was “rescued” and distributed with a new name. (Hansa?)
Karl

76

Karl Ludwig Johannes Schaum

“A man of extraordinary proficiency.”

Born in Germany January 21/1868.
Died in Holland January 30/1928.

Married Cornelia van Tol October 27/1897. She was 20 years old at the time.

Cornelia “came from a family with a nurserymen tradition.”

Mr. Schaum worked in the horticultural field in Germany, Austria and France before moving to Holland.

Although he was German, he wrote A History of Boskoop published in 1908.

The Massachusetts Horticulture Society lists Schaum & van Tol catalogues 1907 - 1917 it apparently has. It would be interesting to see the description of ‘Hansa’ rose, which no doubt was listed in at least some of them.

So now we finally have the first name of Mr. Schaum, which I will note in HMF Roses.

77

Thank you, Karl!

78

The deeper I dig, the more muddled it all seems.

According to the Bot. Reg. description of Rosa ferox, “Leaves smooth, shining, thickset, of a black-green hue”. That doesn’t agree with any R. rugosa I’ve seen.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/Rose_Pictures/Rosa/R_ferox.html

Also, Rosa kamchatica is regarded as a synonym for R. rugosa, but early 19th century descriptions are contradictory. The Bot. Reg. plant has large, curved infrastipular prickles; Ventenat’s plant did not. The leaves are also different in both number and shape. Ventenat described them as “presque tronquées à leur sommet”, but those on the Bot. Reg. picture are not even vaguely truncated.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/Rose_Pictures/Rosa/R_kamchatica.html

Now I have to wonder whether Ferox and Kamchatica originated from the same accession, but came to differ “by culture”, meaning that later generation seedlings differed from the imported parent(s).

It is odd that two such similar-but-different plants should turn up in Europe at about the same time, with one coming from Kamchatka (far eastern Russia) and the other from the Caucasus mountains of western Russia.

I have seen place-names being confused in botanical literature. For instance, the ‘Painted Lady’ sweet pea was said to have come from Ceylon, though the species is really native to Sicily. In one edition of the Gardeners’ Dictionary, Miller claimed that the Austrian Copper Rose originated in Canada, and another American plant was said to be from Armenia. And Crinum jagus got its name because a gardener with a “northern” (i.e., Scottish) accent mispronounced “gigas”.

So, I am considering the possibility that someone, somewhere managed to confuse Caucasus with Kamchatka, either from mis-hearing or mis-reading. Or, perhaps, mistaking their new rose for Bieberstein’s R. ferox.

Hortus Elginensis: Or Catalogue of Plants Indigenous and Exotic, Cultivated … (1811)
By David Hosack
p 48
Rosa Kamschatica Vent.
Rosa ferox? Donn
Both native to Kamschatka

Hortus Cantabrigiensis … The fourth edition (1809)
By James Donn
p 128
34. ferox, Hedgehog. (no date of introduction, origin, or flowering season; nothing further in 1812 edition)

Karl

79

Paul,
I was alluding to Wright’s comment of 1967:

"But what possibilities remain for the use of rugosa in the breeding of hardy everblooming roses? It would appear that if Rosa rugosa is first crossed with Rosa blanda, and then this hybrid is bred to Hybrid Teas or Floribundas, the dominance of rugosa’s weak bud-stems and excessive thorniness is broken much more effectively than if repeated infusions are made with the tender roses to a similar degree of loss of hardiness.

The rose Therese Bugnet, which most of us regard as a Blanda Hybrid rather than a Rugosa Hybrid, is an example of the truth of the foregoing assertion. Its percentage of rugosa, however, is substantial, and it is to the rugosa element in its make-up that the fall blooming habit of the variety is due. The limited number of seedlings of Therese Bugnet raised to date suggests that the combination of good features achieved in it was due to an extremely rare and felicitous segregation, but this is no reason, of course, why the line should not be followed much further."
Wright: Progress in Hardy Everblooming Roses

If “Rosa kamchatica” and “R. ferox” were indeed derived from a hybrid of R. davurica and R. rugosa found in Kamchatka, I would guess that they had the potential for greater hardiness than similar hybrids raised from their more southern relatives. But whether this hardiness would persist in progeny selected in the more temperate climates of England and France (as opposed to Germany and Russia) is another question.

Donald Beaton (1852) wrote:
“The best doctor for our present purpose, is he who can infuse the hardihood of the wild Cape Geraniums into the new race of fancies, for most of the wild ones are much more hardy than the generality of the prize sorts, as I have proved over and over again, having the two growing side by side in the borders of a conservatory wall, where it was very rare indeed to lose a Cape species in winter, and where no winter passed, however mild, without leaving blanks in the large sorts.”

My point is that later generation derivatives of hardy parents may lose the ancestral hardiness if that hardiness is not selected for in each generation.

Karl

80

The muddle continues.

Following Andre’s (1873) report on Rosa rugosa Regeliana, an editor added this comment:

[We are rather astonished that Mr. Andre should not “be able to learn anything of the hedgehog” rose in England. One was well known there thirty years ago, and this one was > R. Kamachatica. > This rose by the way is well worthy of the attention of American cultivators, for the great richness of the large rosy petals, and for the delicious fragrance of the flowers, much sweeter than any rose we know. The genuine > Rosa cinnamomea > of the Rocky mountains not excepted.—ED. G. M.]
Andre: Rosa rugosa Regeliana (1873)

This struck me as odd, but I went on with other matters.

Today I found another related oddity:

Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 8: 382 (1873)
146. > Rosa Kamtschatica > Vent Cels. t. 67. In fruit only; the strong shoots densely setose, and with immense dilated aculei. One or two smooth specimens also collected. An intermediate form is in Dr. Lyall’s collection, from Vancouver’s Island. The > R. cinnamomea > in Pl. Hartweg, to which Ventenat’s plant is referred as a synonyme, is wholly different, and apparently > R. Californica> , Cham. & Schlecht.
Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences - Google Books

Lindley (Bot Reg 1819) discussed R. kamchatica, and complained:

It is remarkable that this species should have been hitherto placed in the vicinity of > ROSA cinnamomea, > which it does not resemble in the least, and that it should at the same time have been separated widely from > ROSA ferox, > which it approaches so nearly that the two can scarcely be discriminated by any describable permanent character, and yet no two species can be more truly distinct.
Untitled Document

It now appears that Lindley had the “wrong” R. cinnamomea in mind.

Capt. Cook explored Vancouver’s Island, then headed for the Sandwich Islands where he died. The crew continued on to Kamchatka, and returned to England in October 1780. This might explain how R. kamchatica and R. ferox reached that country.

Karl

PS.
The Gardeners’ Chronicle, Volume 2, no. 19, page 305 (May 7, 1842)
The Rosa eglanteria is the Austrian Rose; it has not powerful thorns, and will not be suitable for forming a hedge. The best for your purpose will be the Dog Rose, and its varieties; but Rosa ferox has the strongest thorns of any known species.

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