Twin seedlings from one seed!

I’m really excited to report that I have finally found twin seedlings coming up from on seed of an OP seed from a cross of Daylight x Spanish Rhapsody x rosa 54.

The parent hybrid plant is from seeds given me by David Zlesak and I have loved its continuous, single, heavily stippled blooms all last summer and did many crosses to it with a number of my other roses. The seeds have been very fertile this year, the first to sprout.

I like to grow a few OP seeds from all my seedlings to see what potential they show along with my hybrid seeds, and last night I spotted one with two seperate seedlings coming up from the one seed. I seperated the two and as of tonight they are still alive and the cotelydens have opened up. Ine is slightly smaller than the other but otherwise they seem to be identical.

Now I suppose a skeptic might think I found two seedlings from two seeds that happened to be close together, but I can assure you they are not. I check my seeds every other night and pot up only sprouting seeds one per pot, so I can save the hassle of repotting mixed seedlings and keep my labels accurate.

Randy Hughes, Vancouver, WA

My first year growing roses from seeds I had one set of twins but didn’t know the significance of this condition and killed both trying to seperate them. I have since learned from David in his articles in our newsletters and emails that twins usually have one (or both?) with half the number of chromosomes, so in this case my tetraploid mother might have offered up a seedling that is diploid!

This is really exciting to think that if they survive, one of these seedlings might be crossable with rugosas and other diploid species and produce fertile diploid offspring.

I know I’m getting way ahead of myself but it’s fun to imagine the possibilities. Getting them to survive to maturity is the first step, right?

Randy Hughes, Vancouver, WA

Randy

I’m curious. Which rose produced the twins?

Lydia

The mother to the twins is the Daylight x Spanish Rhapsody x rosa 54. It is the single stippled rose I mentioned above.

Rosa 54 is an unregistered seedling of a friend of David’s, I believe. I can’t remember the pedigree of it but it was developed as a breeder for cold hardy roses.

Randy

That’s fantastic Randy!!! Rosa 54 if I remember right is ‘Folksinger’ x R. laxa.

Thanks for refreshing my memory, David. I wrote down all the pedegree information for the “z” pollens and seeds you sent that year but haven’t made time to dig it up again.

Have a great week!

Randy