Does anyone have an idea what this rose might be?
I haven’t checked it lately to see if it has hips or not. And since I was pretty sure it was mislabeled, I haven’t tried any hybridizing with it yet.
I received it from a Canadian nursery, several years ago, and now I can’t seem to reach them – I won’t mention the name – I don’t want to cause any bad feelings.
I was just looking at it and thinking arkansana/suffulta but I don’t think its growth habit is right for that.
I can’t say for sure, but the red leaf petiole and stem appearance reminds me of some of the R. palustris clones I’ve seen and have been working with. Some also have pretty heavy “moss” like this one on the sepals and hypanthium which is another clue leading me to think R. palustris. My guess is that it is some species in the Carolinae section even if it isn’t R. palustris. The leaflet shape leads me to think it probably is not a Cinnamomeae section species like R. arkansana.
Sincerely,
David
David,
Thanks for your thoughts on this rose. By the way, I went out and looked for hips on it, today. Not a single one; very puzzling. All my native North Americans: palustris, virginiana (3 clones), arkansana and carolina, all set hips very freely around here.
And I know what you mean about palustris and the glandular buds. One of my earliest memories of palustris was when I was collecting hips in my hand and noticed the candy-sweet-scent coming from the gland hairs. The next season (1987) I used flowers from those same palustris to do my first rose cross (rugosa X palustris).
The foliage on this “beggeriana” doesn’t look very much like the local palustris foliage (which is long, narrow and willowy looking), but the growth habit is more in line with palustris than arkansana. It’s at least hip-high and not very dense. Another clue – the picture might not show it well, but the foliage is definitely greyish-green.
So, I guess it could still be a palustris hybrid???
That might explain the lack of hips also.
I believe that I also have this rose. I purchased it a few years ago from a Canadian nursery, probably the same one, as R. beggeriana.
I am still finding the various species very hard to identify, despite a lot of reading, and I never questioned the ID on this one. It has bluish leaves as it should, and it has a long bloom season, almost a double season. It is definitely not recurrent in the strict sense, basically just a very long, early summer bloom. R. beggeriana is often reported as recurrent.
I also have Mrs. John McNabb, which is supposed to be R. beggeriana x R. rugosa. Mrs. John McNabb looks like a hybrid of this rose with R. rugosa.
It does resemble the North American species like R. palustris, but I gathered that that was typical of a few Eurasian species: R. beggeriana, R. laxa, R. cinnamomea, R. fedtschenkoana. This is relative to pared nodal prickles, leaf type, and so on. It looks a lot like a scaled-down version of my R. laxa plant. My plant of R. pendulina looked so much like R. blanda that I feared it was mislabeled until it bloomed and made fruits.
I will check for hips, but I don’t think it makes them. I have never gotten anything from its pollen on diploid roses. Maybe it isn’t diploid. It suckers like mad.
If this is not R. beggeriana, I would love to know what it is. Does anyone know what traits could be used to make a definite identification?
I was involved in collecting this particular Rosa beggeriana several years ago from the Morden Agriculture Canada Research Station. The Research Station has a collection of species, which I think is mostly grown from seed obtained from arboretums around the world. Judging from the flower, it appears this Rosa beggeriana is a hybrid with another species. Perhaps it is a triploid, which would explain why it doesn’t set hips.