Same question as my woodsii ultramontana post…
I assume that one big deterrent to its use is the lack of cold hardiness in this species, but does anyone have experiences with it, or know of good (garden worthy) descendants ever coming out of it?
Here’s an old thread about laevigata:
http://rosebreeders.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=53441#p53441
I got around 40 seeds from ‘Frau Dagmar Hastrup’ x R. laevigata last season, but they haven’t sprouted yet.
-Jonathan
Philip,
Lewis and Basye (1961) had some success with R. laevigata, at least as pollen parent with R. soulieana.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/LewisBasye1961/LewisBasye1961.html
Perhaps a hybrid of R. soulieana could be used as seed parent to bring in other colors and maybe some hardiness.
Karl
Soulieana is one I would like to play with on numerous levels. The question is whether the Cherokee rose has anything to contribute to R.s…
I do find it surprising that a ubiquitous rose (at least now in the south) hasn’t been employed more in breeding programs, and have to assume there is a reason for it. Same as with woodsii.
The fact that R. laevigata doesn’t like most foreign pollen is a problem right off the bat. Then there is the little mystery of ‘Anemone’ and the (alleged) reblooming ‘Anemone’. The ancestry (R. laevigata x Tea) is a guess, and probably a bad one. Of all the possible pollen parents in China, why would a Tea rose be involved … unless “Tea” is meant in a very broad sense to include all the near relative of Rosa odorata.
I don’t know whether anyone has tried back-crossing ‘Anemone’ to R. laevigata in either direction. The specimen at San Jose Heritage reblooms well but appears to be virused.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/Rose_Pictures/A/Re_Anemo.html
One of my pictures of the reblooming variety shows an extremely prickly bit of cane. This suggests to me that something other than a Tea rose was involved.
Karl
Some of the naturalized Cherokee roses I see on the roadside, for instance in fields north of Houston, have apparent sporadic rebloom. I would suspect something with china heritage for the Anemone, personally. I have read that e.g. Mutabilis is a pretty good “bridge” for tough crosses, and wonder if that generalization carries over to other chinas. (I currently have an setigera/mutabilis cross that I finally planted up germinating.) I am not familiar with Anemone at all, but my (uneducated, shot-in-the-dark) guess would be a red china type was involved. Not that I know what I’m talking about, but I enjoy acting like it. 
Isozyme and Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) Analyses of Cherokee Rose and Its Putative Hybrids Silver Moon' and Anemone’
“These results suggest that the 24 accessions are ramets of two major clones with one clone predominating and that, contrary to long-standing belief, the Cherokee rose has not naturalized by reseeding in the southeast.”
http://journal.ashspublications.org/content/122/5/659.abstract
I think that statement involves a bit of hair-splitting. Certainly this rose can root along its canes and spread without further assistance from people. That makes it about as naturalized as the old, and very sterile “Ditch Lily”, Hemerocallis fulva ‘Europa’, which also turns up in surprising places.
I checked and found that I have pics (from San Jose) of R. laevigata flowering through March and April, and then in October.
American Rose Annual, 16: 45-51 (1931)
Breeding Better Roses
Rev. George M. A. Schoener, Santa Barbara, Calif.
Eliminating mildew seems also possible through a new strain of hybrid Laevigata roses. Heretofore, it was claimed that R. laevigata, better known as Cherokee, does not make seed, and that other species and types would not take its pollen. Such is not the case, as hundreds of combinations were made with Laevigata as seed-bearer, using pollen from Hybrid Teas, Teas, Hybrid Perpetuals, and Pernetianas. Pollen of Laevigata used on Gigantea has proved that even the Gigantea foliage can be improved, making it much more rigid and glossy, a sure preventive of mildew. In the face of such success it is surely deplorable that the continuation of this experiment is most doubtful. Without further support, these far-reaching experiments are doomed, the more so as it is unlikely that Dr. Crocker will be able to take care of the germination work for the second generation, if nobody else finds it worth while to help push the work to a completion where it would be possible to write out reliable, mathematically correct findings to become the basis for others to carry on systematic rose-breeding.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/Schoener/SchoenerHealth1931.html
Burbank’s 1918 offering of twentieth century: fruits, flowers and various economic plants p. 16
Cathay: Cherokee and Crimson Rambler cross. Extra strong grower and profuse bloomer. Single flowers deep rose-pink, in clusters, each blossom 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Does not fade and does not mildew. Field grown plant, each, $1.
Garland: Cherokee and Crimson Rambler cross. Strong grower, fine foliage, does not mildew. Flowers of a light shell-pink color in enormous clusters; each cluster a perfect bouquet which lasts, without fading, for a long time. Field grown plant, each, $1.
Burbank (New Creations, 1893) reported a hybrid of Rosa rugosa x R. sinica [laevigata]. No description.
The Garden 49: 488-489 (June 27, 1896)
PROGRESS IN THE HYBRIDISING OF ROSES.*
*A paper by the Rt. Hon. Lord Penzance in “The Rosarian’s Year-Book,” 1895.
“Another experiment must be recorded which up to the present time has not met with success. The beautiful glossy foliage of the Rosa camelliaefolia [laevigata] is very inviting to the eye of the hybridiser, and if I could only transfer this foliage to some of our Hybrid Perpetuals, I should consider it a useful triumph. But I could not get the camelliaefolia to flower. From what I have read in the gardening publications I conclude that other people have met with the same difficulty. At last my opportunity came. The splendid sunny season of 1893 ripened the wood of my plant so thoroughly, that in 1894 it gave me twenty flowers. Two of these I treated with the pollen of other plants, but obtained no hips. The remaining eighteen I reserved for pollen, with which I fertilised the blooms of numerous Hybrid Perpetuals. I had a good crop of seed, and I have, perhaps, a hundred plants. In vain have I looked for a shiny leaf. Many of the seedlings have a foliage inclining that way, and certainly different from that of the seed parent, but none (unless as they grow up they put on a more glossy appearance) carry the true Camellia-like leaf which was the object of my quest.”
I have not found any further notes on rose breeding from Penzance, so I don’t know whether anything useful came of these.
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"the Cherokee rose has not naturalized by reseeding in the southeast.”
I am extremely dubious of this claim in view of the isolated populations of Laevigata I have seen, including one I saw clambering up a tree on a small rise in the middle of a Louisiana swamp surrounded by water. I admittedly couldn’t get close enough to confirm my own tentative I.D., and when asked, the cajun tour guide simply said that it was a “swamp rose” leading me to think it not that uncommon for seedlings of this species to germinate on the higher ground in the swamps.
I may soon be able to refute this assertion (or not) as I recently collected a couple hips (ouch) still clinging to a Cherokee rose this spring. There were many tiny, and presumably non-viable seeds, but each hip had a few quite large seeds as well.
On the flip side, I’m inclined to question the hybridity of Penzance’s seedlings. I wonder what the standard care in emasculating and protecting the stigma would have been in his time?
Somewhere I read a note about R. laevigata hips being consumed by livestock (of some kind) and the seeds sprouting where they fell. I have tried to find it, but so far no luck.
I don’t doubt the gene pool is very narrow, considering that all the American plants seem to be descended from those “… cultivated before the revolution by the late Nathaniel Hall, Esq. at his plantation, near Savannah river.” From there, cuttings were passed along to Hall’s in-laws, “Mr. [Gov.] Telfair, and the Mr. Gibbons’ of Sharon and Beach Hill”.
In the American Farmer 3(15): 12 (July 6, 1821), Nicholas Herbemont offered to “send you a few of the hips of it if you wish. The raising it from the seed may be an advantage to the accustoming it to your climate.” But I don’t know the outcome.
Karl
Karl, the reason you’ve not had luck with that search is that the rose livestock ate the hips of is Rosa bracteata, Macartney rose.
Recovery and Viability of Macartnev Rose Seeds Fed to Cattle
Wayne G. McCully
Department of Range and Forestry, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station,
College Station, Texas
https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jrm/article/download/4422/4033
Peter
Ah! That explains it.
Karl
The idea of chewing on a Cherokee rose hip does not sound too pleasant to me.
I wonder what critter normally disseminates the seed in nature.
Philip, there is Basye’s Amphidiploid 86-3, from which I have raised several seedlings. 'Basye's Amphidiploid Seedling 86-3' Rose
Has anyone read of a cross between the yellow Banksiae and Laevigata? Or the yellow Banksiae with a yellow Tea?
It seems to me that the yellow Banksiae would be the quickest (?) way to a yellow Polyantha. And if a yellowish tetraploid Fortunioid hybrid of yellow Banksiae and Laevigata could be had, we could use it to put at least a bit of yellow into subsequent hybrids with no Foetida background.
Are the Banksiaes (or Laevigata) willing to accept pollen from 86-3? I’m wondering whether a bit of breeding within this group might result in a descendent or two that would be more cooperative with other, unrelated breeding lines.
I mentioned the possible Banksiae-Tea combination on the off chance that a dwarf, reblooming Polyantha type plant would result that might be more useful for indoor use than one derived from Multiflora. And if such a plant could have glossy Laevigata leaves, so much the better.
Mansuino raised a dwarf (or mini) derivative of Banksiae and China, which is worth keeping in mind.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/Mansuino/banksiae.htm
Ps. The yellow Banksiae is not merely a color variant. The growth habit and other features (according to the earliest descriptions) suggest that is derived from a different geographical “race”. There are several. Maybe some of the others could someday be imported.
Walter Van Fleet (1908)
AUTHENTIC CHEROKEE HYBRIDS.—Notwithstanding the vigorous growth of the Cherokee rose under favorable conditions it appears difficult to produce artificial hybrids of sufficient vitality to grow to flowering size. We have made many crossings on the Rural Grounds, using a typical plant for the seed parent, and fertilizing with pollen from many desirable garden roses and rose species. There is little difficulty in growing the resulting hybrid seedlings for a season or two, but even with the most careful glasshouse treatment they decline and die before the blooming age is reached. We have propagated some of the most promising by cuttings, and have even budded them on the parent Cherokee but without success, all perishing without bloom, though canes six feet long have been produced. The only exceptions are two plants of Cherokee x Frau Karl Druschki, a white Hybrid Perpetual, that are now entering their third year with some promise of continued growth. A very striking common feature of the hundred or more Cherokee hybrids we have grown is the entire disappearance of the characteristics of the mother plant. In no instance were the hooked prickles and narrow glossy foliage of Cherokee reproduced. The general type even when pollen from the most diverse sorts was used, is dwarf and bushy, with slender straight thorns or spines and foliage of the character of the pollen parent. One exception was produced by pollen of Marshal Niel, the well-known climbing yellow rose of northern greenhouses. This hybrid had hooked spines and intermediate foliage. Several propagations of it were made and buds inserted in various stocks, some growing strongly for a season or two, but all died without producing a flower, though one of the best plants was sent to a careful California grower for trial.
http://bulbnrose.x10.mx/Roses/breeding/VanFleet/VanFleetCherokee1908.html
While this is interesting on its own, it allows us to suppose that Lord Penzance’s seedlings from HPs pollinated by Laevigata were genuine hybrids, even though the influence of Laevigata was not apparent.