The following is part of what is stated on the link given below:
"At the Heritage Rose Conference last year in South Australia one of the interesting speakers was Viru Viraraghavan from India who has been breeding roses as a hobyists since 1966. He retired from work in the public service to devote more time to rose breeding.
He is using the tropical rose species R clinophylla and the Indian form of R gigantea in his breeding (Alister Clark used R gigantea in his breeding).
He has released over 50 new roses and tests them in a hill station in Tamil Nadu as well as a site near Bangalore.
One form of R clinophylla can grow with its feet in water (he showed us a slide of one growing in a pond!), another grows in the dry heat of the Bihar plains and the third on a mountain in the Rajasthan Desert in West India.
His aim is to bridge the genetic gap between R clinophylla and modern roses - however, he is not sure if the genes for heat resistance have been carried through.
He was fascinating and said something which I think is important to most of us in warmer climates :“Warm climate rose breeding has received comparatively little attention in the past - in fact, the greatest pioneer is Australia’s Alister Clark”."
Link: www.au.gardenweb.com/forums/load/roses/msg0706284317507.html?2