I have worked with R. Minutifolia for some years now and am finally seeing some success. Previously, the few seedlings to germinate were terribly diseased and very weak. Now, using fertile triploid roses, there are some healthy, vigorous seedlings showing some promise. I'm intrigued with the triploid crosses because they express a very wide range of each of the parents' traits and have succeeded where the diploid and tetraploid crosses didn't.
There are four seedlings from its pollen now listed on Help Me Find-Roses. I planted self seeds of one this April, just two months ago, and already have flowering seedlings from those seeds! The first rose which produced successful crosses with Minutifolia is Jim Sproul's L56-1,
a brilliant, healthy, fertile single red mini he bred from his healthy Thrive!. The chromosomes haven't been counted yet, but L56-1 certainly breeds like a triploid. Here are foliage samples from L56-1, Minutifolia (Otay Mesa version from the Otay Mesa in San Diego, CA), L56-1 X Minutifolia and a self seedling of the L56-1 X Minutifolia. I didn't record which of the original seedlings these seeds formed on.
Top left, L56-1; top center, Minutifolia; top right self seedling of L56-1 X Minutifolia; lower right, L56- X Minutifolia.
Stipules of the above. The L56-1 X Minutifolia foliage is in the center.
These are the self seedlings from which the sample above was taken. I'm amazed the seeds were only planted back in April, 2016. Today is May 30, 2016!
The second new Minutifolia seedling of 2016 is Lynnie X Minutifolia. Here are foliage samples from Lynnie, Minutifolia and Lynnie X Minutifolia.
Minutifolia and the Lynnie X Minutifolia seedling have very serrated foliage.
Lynnie's foliage is rather smooth edged.
The seedling is extremely well branched, right at ground level, something Lynnie seedlings generally don't produce. It appears to be without prickles, which is very surprising.
The sepals are quite interesting. Traditionally. Lynnie seedling sepals are very strap-like and not very lacy. These show more of the Minutifolia "branching".
This is the most spreading of the L56-1 X Minutifolia seedlings. It flowers repeatedly.
I'm eager to see what results from these and from crossing Minutifolia and Pure Bea, the white Minutifolia with larger foliage and flowers, on the L56-1 Minutifolia seedlings. There are already hips forming on one of them from those pollens. Exciting!
