My first thought was Percy Wright’s ‘Augusta’. Weak necked floppy blossoms, long bloom period, no hips, fragrant. But it is unlikely any nursery is propagating or selling it.
Can you tell us the name of the nursery you purchased it from and in which province? The possibilities would be narrowed a lot if we knew this.
Margit- your knowledge is an inspiration. I had never heard of Augusta. Do you (or anyone) have a sucker or cutting?
Hi and thank you all for the help. Margit, I believe Chuck sent you my email address. I just looked at Alice on HMF and to me the color is darker and the leaves are different. I have Wasagaming, Lady Elsie May and Frontenac and it is none of those. I purchased it about 7- 8 years ago in Ottawa at an independently owned seasonal garden centre that was operating in a Loblaws parking lot (that was before that Loblaws ran its own garden shop). The tag (which I lost) was from Canada and said to the best of my knowledge “Northern Canada Shrub Rose” I thought it was Therese Bugnet because the leaves are similar. Later when I saw it was not Therese I researched the company and the rose at the time I found nothing. I discussed it at Galettas and have looked through the Ottawa Experimental Farm rose collection to no avail. I have some of the Prairie oldies and almost every Explorer, Parkland etc. well lets say I have hundreds of hardy roses that survive my harsh zone 3b/4 garden and this one is a stand out. The bush is about 4.5 ft. tall and vase shaped. It is feet away from a lake open to the west winds and as can be seen in the photo only minor tip damage. And again I cannot stress the bloom production. I was lucky to be able to get a sucker (it is more of a clump with no real runner like suckers) to root as a just in case replacement. I am frustrated but hopeful. Carmen
Kevin,
I’ve continued checking the old descriptions and reports of Rosa rugosa and its allies. Thunberg wrote that the R. rugosa he collected at Miaco (Miyako) bore its solitary flowers in May and June. No clusters, no rebloom.
The plant known in England as R. fexox was also a once bloomer with solitary.
The small-leaved R. kamtchatica of Vent. usually bore solitary flowers, but sometimes they came “deux à deux”. In France, it flowered in June, but gave some blooms in autumn.
Then something changed. Maximowicz collected seeds in Japan, and sent them to St. Petersburg. From there, the plants (or seed from the plants) were distributed to other gardens. By the early 1860s some of these reached Belgium.
Vilmorin (1905) gave some insight into what happened next. “Seedlings, without hybridization, have already given important variations in the coloring and doubling of flowers.” Other novelties came from deliberate or accidental hybridization.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/VilmorinMicrugosa1905.html
I am now of the opinion (subject to revision) that the seeds collected by Maximowicz were already hybrids, or derived of hybrids. But of what?
The plants bred and selected in western Europe, descended from Maximowicz’s collection, probably became somewhat less hardy and thirstier than their cousins selected in the more rigorous climate of Russia.
This would be the distinction that Prof. Budd observed when he compared the plants he brought back from Russia with those received earlier.
How did “Japanese Rugosas” come to be perpetual flowering plant with clusters of flowers? I don’t know, yet. But it does sometimes happen that hybrids of once-blooming species give rise to perpetual flowering progeny. If not in the first generation, then perhaps in the second or later.
Karl
Wow, Karl! You’ll eventually have us at the Big Bang! I’d assumed the naturalizing/invasive cluster repeaters of today were species. Who knew? I’ll be interested to see what else you find. Thanks!
One thing that intrigues me about the Rugosas ‘George Will’ and ‘Roseraie de l’Hay’ is their narrow leaflets. How did they come about?
‘George Will’ - Frank Skinner, the originator, likely stated its parentage incorrectly. Rather than (Rosa rugosa x R. acicularis) x a “garden rose”, because it’s a diploid I’m inclined to believe it was Rosa rugosa x R. woodsii, and because of its very good cold hardiness (Zone 2) I wonder if this selecton was selfed to cause some kind of incompatibility that produced the narrow leaflets.
'Roseraie de l’Hay - Because it’s not very fertile as a pistillate parent, coupled with its narrow leaflets, again this suggests genetic distortion, but caused from what? Apparently this cultivar is a diploid, and if so so I would say it’s likely 100% Rosa rugosa.
It would be interesting to do some studies on how double Rugosas could have been developed by selfing genotypes having single flowers.
Kevin,
We wouldn’t have to go back quite that far. A trip back to the Cretaceous could reveal a lot about the forced isolation and subsequent speciation of roses in North America; e.g., the splitting of Rosa blanda and R. woodsii. And the later Ice Age, followed by the continental uplift might give an idea of how R. foliolosa was separated from R. palustris, and the latter pushed eastward.
In the mean time, a clue from Maurice Vilmorin (1905):
“Such great qualities could not escape the passionate cultivators of the rose, and in the very country of the rough-leaved rosebush, in Japan, the species was crossed or naturally crossed with at least two other native species: the Rosa Semperflorens or Bengal, either typical, or more probably already transformed, and Rosa multiflora. From the first crossing came the rosebush Taïkoun, with foliage narrower than that of rugosa, but with large, double and fragrant flowers. From the second proceeds the Rosa Ywara of Siebold, a beautiful compact shrub 2 meters high, with abundant foliage, but small white flowers, of insufficient consistency and short duration.”
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/VilmorinMicrugosa1905.html
And the pictures of ‘Calocarpa’, another hybrid of China and Rugosa, has rugose leaves that are narrower than those of “typical” rugosas, and bears flowers in large clusters.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/Rose_Pictures/C/Calocarpa.html
Jour. Hort. Soc. 3: 318-319 (1848)
38. > Rosa rugosa> . Thunb., Fl. Jap., p. 213; Lindl., Monogr. Ros. p. 5, t. 19. (Var. plena purpurea.)Sent from China by Mr. Fortune: as a garden variety from Shanghae.
This plant has very much the appearance of > R. Kamtchatica> , but its leaves are more shining on the upper surface, and on the under they are closely covered with very pale whitish scentless glands.
The variety sent home by Mr. Fortune has semi-double sweet-scented flowers of a rich purple, about two inches across.
A hardy half-climbing kind, resembling the > Rosa bracteata > in habit, growing freely in any good, rich soil, and easily increased by budding or by cuttings in the usual way. It flowers from June to August. It is a distinct, but not very ornamental kind, with sweet-scented semi-double deep purple flowers.
August 14, 1848
v.3 (1848) - The journal of the Horticultural Society of London - Biodiversity Heritage Library
It is a bit amusing that the editor makes a point of identifying this new rose with Thunberg’s Japanese Rosa rugosa even though it was collected in China (where R. rugosa is also native). Also, the growth habit suggests it was a hybrid, possibly with a reblooming Semperflorens.
And another thing:
The Gardeners’ Chronicle 40(1023): 95-96 (Aug 4, 1906)
M. Maurice de Vilmorin communicated a note on a new hybrid Rose, a painting of which he passed round for the examination of the Conference, between > Rosa rugosa > and > R. foliolosa> , which had the advantage of flowering late in the season.
Mr. Paul congratulated Mr. de Vilmorin on his acquisition.
The Chairman said he should like to ask whether the long flowering was in any way connected with not setting seed?
M. Vilmorin said it was not—it produced good seed.
This is worth mentioning because ‘Basye’s Purple’, of similar breeding, is not as free-blooming or fruitful as one might hope.
Garden and Forest 5(218): 195 (April 27, 1892)
Notes of a Summer Journey in Europe.–XIII.
J. G. Jack, Arnold Arboretum
At the Royal Society of Horticulture of Belgium … The occasional flowering throughout the summer of Rosa rugosa is here considered as simply an accidental, and not a reliable, character.
I found this today and wanted to put it somewhere appropriate. This is another fallout from Bieberstein’s attempt to match a plant from the rocky southern Taurus with something already published. His first (mis)attempt was to call the plant Rosa provincialis.
Transactions of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society p. 42 (1861)
Francis Parkman
On Mount Caucasus grows a single wild rose, from the seeds of which have sprung the numerous family of the Provence or Cabbage roses, very double, very large, and very fragrant. This race is remarkable for its tendency to sport, from which have resulted some of the most singular and beautiful forms of the rose. For example, a a rose-colored variety of the Provence produced a branch bearing striped flowers, and from that branch has been propagated the Striped Provence. The Crested Moss is the product of another of these freaks, being of the pure Provence race. The Common Moss, and all its progeny, owe the same origin, being derived, in all probability, from a sporting branch of one of the Provence roses.
And as I’ve previously noted, Bieberstein later changed his mind and misidentified the same plant as R. ferox (=rugosa).
How his errors got moved to the Caucasus is another mystery I have not yet resolved.