I was wondering if the various sources for R. wichurana serena carry clones of the same provenance, and it is in fact pure species. [edited to correct species to wichurana. (I was on autopilot and wrote setigera, which I have in my collection.)]
The photos I found of the thornless variant of wichurana look to my eye slightly different from photos of the species. I then found the morph shown at Antique Rose Emporium before noticing that the photographed plant appears to have thorns, and I assume an image of the normal form was simply substituted.
I seem to recall discussions nearly a decade ago of folks sharing and working with this rose, and I was wondering as to folks’ experiences with such.
Also, was wondering if folks have much experience with the true species of soulieana (having the glaucous foliage and blue-grey bloom on the stems)? I know that descendants of soulieana feature heavily in some pf Tom Carruth’s babies, and wondered what benefits come from this species. (I have been interested in this one for the cool colored foliage, but wonder what motivated Carruth to lean so heavily on the seedlings he obtained.)
Gist of it is he was new and around when the seedling was bred, he liked that seedling in particular, gave a cutting of it away, business dramas happened and access to that line and the other hybrids that were around ended. Few years later the person he gave the cutting too said she still had it and then propagated it and started using it in his own breeding.
From the back of room, thanks for the link - excellent interesting and informative. Key take away for me is stepping out to include broad base in the breeding line - such as starting with an interesting species - can have potential for “good genetic performance surprises” down the road vs pounding the same developed line to ad nauseam and pink extinction. Only time in some cases is a premium to make a worthy find, but better to try.
Yes! Thank you Plazbo. That was a video that had gotten me to thinking about the soulieana beyond the glaucous foliage aspect. Tom didn’t delve too deeply into how much he thought the species per se contributed to “Squiggle” (the great grandchild that sired so many winners in the breeding program). The gist I take from it is that it was not so much the species’ involvement as it was the seedling itself (from the hybridizers’ perspective, as the species was multiple generations back) that begged use, but clearly the species conferred the initial interest to Swim that ultimately panned out. I’m wondering if that is an exercise that bears repeating in additional work, using newer modern roses, or not.
And yes, the key takeaway for me too was the value in broad genetics, rikuhelin. I’ve felt that way for some time (hence my interest in species, even it that promises to be a long row to hoe.) I don’t have the capacity to just play the numbers game within the genetic pot that is currently available, and feel the introduction of new material to broaden my base seems a more interesting and promising route to me.
I have particularly been interested in taming some of the underused Synstyllae to that end.
The fact that there are numerous existing thornless morphs in that group doesn’t hurt…
Dont want to take away from focus of ur thread, but will share my pleasure that my Synstyllae” hybrids? Lykkefund (rumoured Helenae hybrida natural crossing with Bourbon and thornless) and other parent Helenae hybrida (natural fluke?) seem to have survived winter under mega protection … one for two winters - (lykkefund 2 winters) hopefully bloom this year for pollen or seed parent.
I disown any spelling errors as cigar and Kona coffee time in unheated garage and on cell.
You’re getting into this too many years too late, Philip. I sent these photos to Tom way back in April of 2012. A rose friend passed cuttings of this on to me and reported it was one of “Tom’s Soulieana roses”. Tom’s response was, “From the photos, this definitely looks like one of the Soulieana group that Jack Christensen bred back in the early 80’s. The clusters and foliage are particularly distinctive. However, it is not the parent involved on either Jacob’s Ladder or All Ablaze. Can the owners give you some background on how it was obtained?” Yup, he passed it to an exhibitor at a rose meeting who shared it with my friend. I sent some to Peter Harris a decade ago. Unfortunately, I no longer have it and where it grew is now infested with Chilli Thrips so I don’t touch anything from the area.
Lullaby is one of the easiest roses I’ve ever grown, its foliage leans into R. soul well enough, and it is pollen fertile. However, it is hard to work with due to low pollen rate. It has relatively few prickles.
Toscana Vigorosa is a decent repeater with a reduced prickle count for a rose that is heavily recombined Rosa wichurana. Queen Mum has a lot of wichurana and likely produced Fire Opal, which has a low prickle count (at least mine does).
Unfortunately, those are the only immediate ideas I can come up with from the market in these years.
I had a plant of R. soulieana (from Vintage, if I recall correctly) for a number of years, and found it to be a vicious beast of a plant. Its foliage was not impressively glaucous in appearance relative to some others–it seemed to be the result of hairs on the leaves rather than a glaucousness of the cuticle itself [edit: either it was that, or it was just dull. Either way, it wasn’t overly impressive]. I wouldn’t say that it was the most disease-free species rose I’ve grown, either. Even more important for me, the fragrance was not particularly pleasant to my nose. It smelled more like single R. multiflora than I personally prefer, although converting more stamens to petals would probably improve that quickly. Last but certainly not least, its numerous and relatively closely-borne, strong, hooked prickles were pure evil and made the plant impossible to approach without the imminent threat of bloodshed. Cane borers found it irresistible, and these ultimately led to its downfall, maybe with a little help from verticillium wilt that moved in for the final kill. It was with only a faint twinge of remorse that I was finally able to (carefully!) dismantle what was left of its thorny corpse a few years back. I really should regret the loss of germplasm, but I honestly haven’t felt too bad about it since.
I have not seen prickles on the stems of the available “thornless” form of R. luciae (R. wichurana), ‘Basye’s Thornless’, but I don’t know if there is any reduction in the prickles found on the leaf rachis, so it can still be a very grabby thing. It doesn’t give any visual indication of being a hybrid as far as I can tell. I’m not sure that I’m aware of any other clones of the species besides ‘Basye’s Thornless’ that lack stem prickles. There is no doubt that there could be more clonal variation present in Rosa setigera Serena Group if additional individuals were introduced from the natural populations first described as var. serena, but I’m pretty sure that only one functionally female clone of that form is widespread in cultivation. I do not believe that the epithet “serena” has ever been established with R. luciae (R. wichurana).
