There has been some discussion here and elsewhere about R. foliolosa hybrids, so......

In my limited experience using Rosa foliolosa in a breeding program (with the Rugosa ‘Hansa’), it has the ability to produce F1 progeny having very good repeat bloom. At least in relatively short growing season climates like the Canadian Prairies. This is because Rosa foliolosa, although it begins blooming late, blooms over a long period of time. As far as I know, no other North American rose species on a consistent basis has the ability to do this when crossed with Rugosas. The negative thing about hybridizing Rosa foliolosa with R. rugosa is that the flowers lack substance and only bloom for a couple of days.

No question. Rosa foliolosa has much potential to use in breeding programs, especially developing roses for dry climates.

“if one were to collect fallen OP hips from under ‘R. Foliolosa’ thickets, can anyone comment on the expected seedling ratio of species self/species hybrid??”

My foliolosa clone does not self at all except possibly for the later flowers

Hi Pierre… this is what I was afraid I might hear… I guess it has something to do with the self-incompatibility phenomenon found in some rose species.

:0(

My clone, Paul, came from a nursery that I can’t remember (Forrest Farm?) and from what I remember, this clone came from the border between California and Texas. (The owners didn’t remember where that clone came from that well either.)

Actually, I’ve been finding OP seedlings of foliolosa all over my garden. And my clone selves quite easily too.

I’ve got one OP seedling potted up right now, although it dried out. But-- who knows, it can come back next year.

If somebody is interested in working with foliolosa, I have the potted up seedling for you. I can send it bareroot style.

How come Pierre’s clone almost never selfs, yet Enrique’s clone goes totally the opposite way?

Could it be that one of these two are a hybrid? Or is it possibly just due to the obvious differences in location and local conditions (climate, soil etc)…

Diploid species and hybrids are more or less self sterile. This is rarely absolute and often times late season selfing has been observed. Also species are quite variable that is why I wrote: “My foliolosa clone”. It is a grafted one I bought at Loubert.

And eventually there is the possibility for Enrique seedlings to be crossed…

Thanks Pierre, makes sense.

Mine also set seed easily without human intervention. Whether these are self-pollinations or pollen from elsewhere in the garden (there are 3000 other roses within 0.5 mile of it, after all!) is anyone’s guess.

there are 3000 other roses within 0.5 mile

All yours? Have you posted any photos of your farm online?

Well, Paul. Your pix of your hybrid got these words from my gf:

“Whoa! Cool! Now that’s neat!”

haha. I like it too :stuck_out_tongue:

If you ever get a chance to grab some foliolosa cuttings think of me :wink: I’d love to put it on ‘Scabrosa’ to see how it goes with it too<<<<<<<<<<<<

Simon,

I am unable to get foliolosa propagation material from the rose park I frequent, as it is not permitted to take propagation material from those plants. It is my favorite rose hang-out…I go there and learn so much by studying how so many teas, chinas, and species behave in my climate…very surprising and invaluable to study!

HOWEVER…the good news is that I did find a potential nursery source for foliolosa. This nursery may or may not be able to supply depending on the state of their plant, as they have been operating under severe water restrictions over the last several years. I am supposedly getting an answer this weekend, but I told the guy even seed or a few cuttings would suffice if he could not offer a plant…I’ll share with you what I get, are you still interested?

BTW Simon, the nursery I am dealing with about this R.foliolosa is Golden Vale Nursery in Victoria, in case you are interestd to check out other stuff they offer online… You have to look in the “history” section in their home page to actually get to their list of roses.

This is starting to look interesting…

My foliolosa X blanda seedlings are starting to leaf out (I have several seedlings-- just from 2 hips… all of them germinated.)

their foliage looks more like blanda (grey green and downy) than foliolsa-- (thick and long and shiny-surfaced.)

One seems very prone to mildew, but the others are free of it.

Hopefully-- the thornlessness in each species will combine and give me thornless seedlings. (Although-- my clones have prickles… but not much thorns.)

I’m starting to wonder what else foliolosa may offer as a species. I love the elongated foliage.

I tried looking up R. foliolosa in the USDA database and then Flora of the Great Plains. It is called the “White Prairie Rose”, so presumably the dominant color ought to be white (or light pink). Somewhere I read the comment that we must be careful to distinguish it from R. foliosa. R foliolosa is found in very limited distribution, just south-east KS, SW MO?, AR some, OK, considerable, and TX the NE part. So it is adapted to hot areas with rainfall mainly in summer from the Gulf, 40 inch (1 m) or more/yr. But not the sandy scrublands of south TX, nor the hot windy dry parts of TX,OK,KS. The description says flowers come on branches of the season, from rhizomes, contrasting it with R blanda which blooms on short laterals from the previous year’s stems, or R arkansana which does both ways. R foliolosa may hybridize with R carolina which extends that far W. Preferred habitat sandy, rocky, open woodlands, thickets, prairies, roadsides, stream valleys. I guess that’s everywhere it hasn’t been plowed out or overplanted in that part of the plains/ hills.

Bayse could have found it easily enough from Austin, if that interests you.

Interesting, Larry. Yesterday I was looked at pictures of the White Prairie Rose on the Lady Bird Johnson Wild Flower database. I was struck by the leaf texture. It looks very different from the almost-matte leaflets of Rosa foliolosa I have from Forest Farm. Linked below are three decent photos of the White Prairie Rose. My plant looks like all the pink forms shown on HMF and a google image search of “Rosa foliolosa.”

So…I consulted Walter Lewis’s 1957 dissertation, A Monograph of the Genus Rosa in North America East of the Rocky Mountains. The Texas foliage actually matches the original description better than the pink form in commerce. Nuttall’s description describes the leaflets as shining above, and Lewis adopted that description.

Lewis’ observations: “Rosa foliolosa Nutt. is a remarkably distinct species native to regions of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas…With the exception of a white-flowered variety described by Bridwell, which was later reduced to R. foliolosa Nutt. f. alba (Bridwell) by Rehder (1949), no forms of this species have been found that warrant taxonomic recognition.” Other highlights: the lanceolate foliage is distinct, 3-4 times longer than wide; by far the shortest pedicel of any rose in the section Cinnamomeae; the most limited range of any species in section Cinnamomeae; pollen very fertile; the morphology of the white form is typical of R. foliolosa Nutt. except that the flowers are white instead of being pink. The white form is a rarity.

No mention of anything else unique about the white form. I checked the appendix for the list of accessions he consulted. I have the impression that Lewis worked primarily with herbarium specimens of Foliolosa, which probably didn’t preserve the extremely shiny upper leaf surface of the white form.

Link: www.wildflower.org/gallery/species.php?id_plant=ROFO

Is it known what color version of R.foliolosa Dr. Basye was incorporating for example in his R.bracteata hybrids?

What I cannot understand is how there came to be a brightly colored rose in commerce with this species name, when the descriptions given by Nuttall and other authorities (Rehder, Lewis, McGregor) to the present day describe it as the white (underlined) prairie rose.

Bayse presumably got whatever he chose to get. The native distribution in TX includes the northern 3 tiers of counties, which includes Dallas. Mostly the earlier reports were from a bit further west if the USDA map is to be believed. The photos that Cass found on the Lady Bird Johnson site, and those at the digital Flora of Texas A & M ( done by an ambitious amateur there) show it as white, and short and prolific of red hips. But its other features, as she mentioned, make it quite distinctive. It is of narrow geographic distribution according to Lewis.

Any history known for the commercial type?

I just checked A Flora of North America. Nuttall didn’t describe the color of the bloom and might not have seen any flowers. The commentary of Gray and Torrey describes the flowers as “apparently rose-color.” Lewis didn’t describe the color of the petals either; however, the taxonomy implies that the usual form, R. foliolosa f. foliolosa, is not white, since the white form is reported as a subtaxa, f. alba.

Bean reports a “rich pink form in commerce” as of my edition, 1981. Percy Wright writes that the color as “true pink, not rose-pink, but rich pink with no blue tones…” in 1971. Roy Shepherd describes the bloom as “deep pink” as of 1954 and gives the date of 1880 as the date it was first cultivated. Shepherd also says the white form has been in cultivation since 1919, but we have report in Journal des roses describing the bloom as white in 1897 from a specimen in the collection of Maurice de Vilmorin.

I think Basye used the pink form. Percy wrote in the 1971 American Rose that he received R. foliolosa “from a professor of mathematics at Texas State College, who thought that it might have a chance of survival in Saskatchewan, which is more than a thousand miles north of its point of origin.” Dr. Bayse was a professor of mathematics at Texas A & M. Close enough.

Oh that is most informative, thank you Cass!

All arguments about bloom color aside, my plant’s foliage doesn’t look at all like the foliage of the specimen Cass supplied a link to. This suggests that mine is indeed a hybrid of some sort.