Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Frustration!

It doesn't take many seedlings raised before you lose a tag. Frustrating! Whether it's your own neglect, some vermin removing it as happened in my old Newhall garden where rodents were all over the hillside chaparral, or snails eating the paper tag, usually the side with the graphite on it from your documentation.

This seedling is one of the latest frustrations. I know the seed parent, the "mother", was Ralph Moore's 0-47-19, the R. Wichurana X Floradora hybrid he used for sixty years to create some remarkable roses. Who the father is, is open to conjecture. I know what I used on the seed parent. I don't have records of what failed, only what I can document was planted, and what got planted without paternal information.

I kept this seedling because of its dense, healthy foliage. It isn't as rampant a grower as some of its siblings. The wood is mahogany with mid green, semi glossy leaves. It has prickles, but not terrible ones like others of its relatives, or even its mother. It germinated last year and only began flowering for the first time a few weeks ago.


It is obvious there are Wichurana genes in the plant, all parts suggest it. I've not had a seedling from 0-47-19 show such photo reaction in the flowers. The sun touches the petal reverses, giving them a nice rosy glow. There is a flesh tone to them that suggests what I more and more suspect might be its "daddy".





I've only caught one fading flower before it fell and was thrilled to find the petal surfaces overcast with a similar rosy glow. I'll watch for these to take on that glow to be able to post photos later in an edited post.

Anyone care to go out on a limb and suggest what could be the pollen parent?

Update:

These are the same blooms one day later, and one Katydid attack later.