Halo Sunrise Ancestors 3

What’s still green: Arborvitae, juniper and other evergreens, Apache plume, a few roses, cholla, prickly pear, yuccas, Japanese honeysuckle, grape hyacinth, St. John’s wort, vinca, beardtongues, coral bells, rock rose, sea pink, pink and yellow evening primroses, purple aster, cheat grass, bases of needle and June grasses.

What’s grey, blue-grey or grey-green: Piñon, pinks, snow-in-summer, saltbush, winterfat.

What’s yellow: Weeping willow branches.

What’s blooming inside: Christmas cactus, aptenia, asparagus fern; rochea and Christmas cactus leaves tinged with red.

Animal sightings: Rabbit still taking the same path; tracks Friday from the road through the yucca bed, then along the house to the drive, and out to my neighbors.

Weather: Snow from Wednesday still covers the north and west facing beds; 8:26 hours of daylight today.

Weekly update: The most important ancestor of Ralph Moore’s Halo Sunrise is a hypothetical species called Rosa chinensis that was the original parent of the first roses imported from China. The first to arrive in England in 1759 and the first to appear in the genealogy is Parson’s Pink

Nothing that can be directly identified as Rosa chinensis has been found in the wild. In 1983, Mininoro Ogisu found stands of wild roses in southwestern Sichuan which many consider the closest we’ve come. However, when the seeds he collected were planted, they displayed variations one would expect from a hybrid, rather than a species. No one knows if Rosa chinensis spontanea is a feral hybrid or a natural one.

We do know the Chinese were cultivating roses from at least the Han dynasty (206 bc-220 ad), and that growers in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) found a way to save the recessive gene that allows roses to bloom more than once a season. A painting from that dynasty looks very much like Parson’s Pink.

The roses we know as China roses had already been crossbred with others species for fragrance and flower size. One, Rosa odorata, is only found in Yunnan. Another, Rosa odorata gigantea, varies in habit and flower where it grows in Yunnan, Myanmar, and adjacent parts of India, Thailand and Vietnam.

Guo Liang Wang believes roses began to move from the court to the general population during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). When Ogisu returned to Sichuan with Martyn Rix, they saw roses very like Parson’s Pink and Slater’s Crimson growing in a village near Ping-wu where feral chinensis spontanea roses flourished in the scrub covered hills.

By the time, the East India Company was sending back seeds back to England, often through the Calcutta botanical gardens run by William Roxburgh, roses had spread throughout the Chinese sphere of influence. The rose sent to France from La Réunion in 1823 by Edouard Perichon, that became the parent of the Bourbons, turned out to be a cross between the same Parson’s Pink and a damask

Chamberlain Hurst looked at chromosomes of “674 species, sub-species, varieties and hybrids” to discover most of the species had two sets of seven chromosomes, but that the old varieties cultivated in Europe had doubled that number to 28, while the newer varieties imported from China had 21.

When geneticists moved back beyond genealogies and history, they found evidence of even greater selection by man within the choices made by nature: six of the seven species that contributed to domesticated roses are closed related. When they looked wider still, at all roses, they realized almost all the species can be defined as one general group by their DNA. The exceptions are the hulthemia that interested Moore when he died and the roxburghii that began my quest.

Generations 9 to 13 of Halo Sunrise follow. Three of the roses Hurst’s defined as the progenitors of modern roses appear, Parson’s Pink, Clayton’s Crimson and Park’s Yellow.

Gen 9
Antoine Ducher - 1866 - Jean-Claude Ducher - hybrid perpetual
Seedling of Madame Domage
Château de Clos Vougeot - gen 7 - hybrid tea
Devoniensis - 1838 - Foster - tea
Smith’s Yellow China x Park’s Yellow Tea-Scented China
Fellenberg - 1835 - Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg /
Fellemberg - noisette
Unknown
François Michelon - 1871 - Antoine Levet (père)
hybrid perpetual
Seedling of La Reine
Gloire des Rosomanes - gen 7 (2x) - tea
Joseph Lowe - 1907 - Walter Bentley - hybrid tea
Sport of Mrs. W. J. Grant
Jules Margottin -1853 - Jacques-Julien, Jules Margottin Père &
Fils - hybrid perpetual
Seedling of La Reine
Kitchener of Khartoum - gen 7 - hybrid tea
La France - 1867 - Jean-Baptiste André (fils) Guillot
hybrid tea
Seedling of Madame Falcot
Lady Mary Fitzwilliam - gen 8 - hybrid tea
Liberty - gen 7 - hybrid tea
Madame Abel Chatenay - 1895 - Joseph Pernet-Ducher
hybrid tea
Victor Verdier x Docteur Grill
Madame Desprez - 1831 - Jean Desprez - Bourbon
Rose Édouard
Madame Hoste - 1887 - Jean-Baptiste André (fils) Guillot (or)
Pierre Guillot - tea
Seedling of Victor Pulliat
Madame Méha Sabatier - gen 7 - hybrid tea
Madame Norbert Levavasseur - gen 7 - polyantha
Mignonette - 1880 - Jean-Baptiste André (fils) Guillot
polyantha
Seedling from
Seedlings of unspecified polyantha x unspecified tea rose
Mrs. Charles E. Russell - 1914 - Alexander Montgomery -
hybrid tea
Madame Caroline Testout
x (Madame Abel Chatenay x Marquise Litta)
Ophelia - gen 6 - hybrid tea
Ophirie - 1841 - Maurice Goubault - noisette
Unknown
Orléans Rose - gen 8 - polyantha
Papa Gontier - 1883 - Gilbert Nabonnand - tea
Seedling of Duchess of Edinburgh
Park’s Yellow Tea-Scented China - 1824 - China
Possibly Rosa chinensis and Rosa odorata gigantea
Unknown Chinese breeders
John Damper Parks send from China, 1824
Richmond - gen 7 - hybrid tea
Rosa chinensis - gen 5 - species
Rosa foetida persiana - species
Middle east
Henry Willock introduce to England from Persia, late 1830's
Rosa multiflora - species
Eastern China, Japan, Korea
Carl Thunberg describe in Japan in 1784
Coignet send from Japan to Jean Sisley in Lyon, 1861
Sir Joseph Paxton - 1852 - Jean Laffay - Bourbon
Unknown
Souvenir de la Reine d’Angleterre - 1855 - Scipion Cochet -
hybrid perpetual
La Reine x Seedling
Souvenir de Victor Hugo - 1884 - Bonnaire - tea
Comtesse de Labarthe x Regulus
Triomphe de l'Exposition - 1855 - hybrid perpetual
Jacques-Julien, Jules Margottin Père & Fils
Unknown
Victor Verdier - 1859 - François Lacharme - hybrid perpetual
Jules Margottin x Safrano
Gen 10
Comtesse de Labarthe - 1857 - H.B. (or possibly H. Pierre)
Bernède - tea
Unknown, possibly Caroline
Docteur Grill - gen 8 - tea
Duchess of Edinburgh - before 1874 - Monsieur A. Dunant
hybrid perpetual
Marguerite de St.-Amand x Baronne Adolphe de Rothschild
Jules Margottin - gen 9 - hybrid perpetual
La Reine - 1842 - Jean Laffay (3x) - hybrid perpetual
Seedling of William Jesse
Madame Abel Chatenay - gen 9 - hybrid tea
Madame Caroline Testout - gen 7 - hybrid tea
Madame Falcot - 1858 - Jean-Baptiste André (fils) Guillot - tea
Seedling of Safrano
Madame Domage - 1853 - Jacques-Julien, Jules Margottin Père
& Fils - hybrid perpetual
Unknown
Marquise Litta - 1893 - Joseph Pernet-Ducher - hybrid tea
Unknown
Mrs. W. J. Grant - gen 8 - hybrid tea
Regulus - by 1811 - Gallica
Claude-Thomas Guerrapain describe, 1811
Park’s Yellow Tea-Scented China - gen 9 - tea
Rose Édouard - 1823 - Bourbon
Parson’s Pink x Quatre Saisons
Edouard Perichon discover in La Réunion
Probably came through India
Released in France, 1823
Rosa Foetida - gen 7 - species
Rosa odorata gigantea - gen 5 - species
Safrano - gen 8 - tea
Smith’s Yellow China - 1829 - W. Smith - tea
Blush Noisette x Parks' Yellow Tea-scented China
Victor Pulliat - 1870 - Jean-Claude Ducher - tea
Seedling of Madame Mélanie Willermoz
Victor Verdier - gen 9 - hybrid perpetual
Gen 11
Baronne Adolphe de Rothschild - gen 8 - hybrid perpetual
Blush Noisette - 1814 - Philippe Noisette - noisette
Seedling of Champneys' Pink Cluster
Caroline - 1833 - Modeste Guérin (Angers) - tea
Unknown
Madame Mélanie Willermoz - 1845 - François Lacharme - tea
Unknown
Marguerite de St.-Amand -1864 - Arthur De Sansal -
hybrid perpetual
Unknown
Parson’s Pink - 1752 - China
Genes of Rosa odorata gigantea and Slater’s Crimson
Unknown Chinese breeders
Sent to John Parsons in England, 1759
Quatre Saisons - first reported in Europe, 1622 - damask
(Rosa moschata x Rosa gallica) x Rosa fedtschenkoana
Safrano - gen 8 - tea
William Jesse - 1838 - Jean Laffay - hybrid perpetual
Unknown
Gen 12
Champneys' Pink Cluster - c.1811 - John Champneys - noisette
Parson’s Pink x Rosa moschata
Slater’s Crimson - gen 8 - species
Rosa fedtschenkoana - species
Xinjiang, Kazakhstan
Introduced to Russia from Turkistan by Alexei and Olga
Fedtschenko c. 1871
Rosa gallica - species
Central, southern Europe, Turkey and Caucasus
Count Thibault IV of Champagne bring from Jerusalem,
1240
Rosa moschata - species
Logical name for parents of Mediterranean musk rose
Nothing found in nature
Suspected to come from Himalayas
Mediterranean Europe
Crispijn van de Passe describe, 1614
Rosa odorata gigantea - gen 5 - species
Gen 13
Parson’s Pink - gen 11 - tea
Rosa moschata - gen 12 - species

Notes: Ancestries mostly drawn from the Helpmefind.com website and Botanica’s Roses, 2000.

Hurst, C. C. “Genetics of the Rose,” The Rose Annual 1929.

Matsumoto, S., M. Kouchi, J. Yabuki, M. Kusunoki, Y. Ueda and H. Fukui “Phylogenetic Analyses of the Genus Rosa Using the Matk Sequence: Molecular Evidence for the Narrow Genetic Background of Modern Roses,” Scientia Horticulturae 77:73-82:1998.

Rix, Martyn. 'China Roses,' Historic Rose Journal, Spring 1999.

Wang, Guoliang. “A Study on the History of Chinese Roses from Ancient Works and Images,” Acta Horticulturae 751:347-356:2007.

Photograph: Rosa rugosa, the only Eurasian species to grow in my yard, has hips and thorns; 26 December 2009.

Halo Sunrise Ancestors 2

What’s still green: Arborvitae, juniper and other evergreens, Apache plume, a few roses, cholla, prickly pear, yuccas, red hot poker, grape hyacinth, hollyhock, winecup, large-leaved globemallow, oriental poppy, St. John’s wort, vinca, white sweet clover, alfalfa, sweet pea, flax, beardtongue, snapdragon, coral bells, rock rose, sea pink, large-leaved soapwort, columbine, pink and yellow evening primroses, perky Sue, Shasta daisy, tansy, anthemis, protected Mexican hat, coreopsis, purple aster, cheat grass, bases of needle and June grasses. Someone had good enough gloves to put glass balls on the tips of a yucca in town.

What’s grey, blue-grey or grey-green: Piñon, pinks, snow-in-summer, yellow alyssum, winterfat.

What’s blooming inside: Christmas cactus, aptenia, asparagus fern; rochea and Christmas cactus leaves tinged with red.

Animal sightings: Only dogs come out early in the morning.

Weather: Early morning temperatures fall below 20; afternoons above freezing; ice persist in northwestward facing areas; last rain 12/08/09; 8:45 hours of daylight today.

Weekly update: In the ancestry of Ralph Moore’s Halo Sunrise miniature rose, hybrid teas were the dominant group of roses in the generations before floribundas.

The release of the first hybrid tea in 1867 by Jean-Baptiste André Guillot fils is used by rosarians to mark the boundary between old and modern roses. La France was a seedling of Madame Falcot, which in turn was a seedling of Safrano.

If one instead used the adoption of methodical breeding over selecting chance acts of nature that produced La France, then its grandparent Safrano would be the milestone between the old and the new. The tea rose released in 1839 by Beauregard in Angiers.combined a yellow China with a Bourbon.

Beauregard was following the interests of his fellow Frenchmen in introducing the desirable traits of the China roses into the existing rose population. The techniques used by Jean Laffay at Auteuil in 1837 were less precise than those of Beuregard, but were as complex as those used by Jan de Vink to introduce miniaturization from a China rose into the existing stock. Laffay combined unknown Chinas, Portlands and Bourbons to create the first hybrid perpetual, Princesse Hélène.

Complexity of precise breeding techniques might be a better way to define modern roses. The demarcation between old and new would then be the introduction of Soleil d'Or by Joseph Pernet-Ducher in 1900. The Frenchman combined a Rosa foetida persiana with a hybrid perpetual that not only reintroduced the possibly of using species roses for injecting specific traits, but created a hybrid with an inheritable pure yellow.

Soleil d'Or expanded the range of colors to all the coral, peach and orange shades between yellow and red. It was a yellow rose suffused with pink that created the mass market for roses after World War II when it added resistence to disease to its virtues. Francis Meilland used five different hybrid teas to create the Peace my mother cherished.

Generations 6 to 8 of Halo Sunrise, back to Soleil d'Or, follow.

Gen 6
Alain - gen 4 - floribunda
Ami Quinard - 1927 - Charles Mallerin (2x) - hybrid tea
Madame Méha Sabatier
x (Mrs. Edward Powell x Rosa foetida bicolor)
Ampère - 1937 - Meilland International -hybrid tea
Charles P. Kilham x Condesa de Sástago
Aroma - 1931 - Benjamin R. Cant & Sons - hybrid tea
Unknown
Baby Château - gen 5 - floribunda
Capucine Chambard - species hybrid
Unissued seedling of Rosa foetida bicolor
Charles P. Kilham - gen 5 - hybrid tea
Congo - 1943 - Meilland International - hybrid tea
Admiral Ward x Lemania
Constance - 1915 - Joseph Pernet-Ducher - hybrid tea
Seedling of Rayon d’Or
Crimson Glory - 1935 - W. Kordes Sohne (4x) - hybrid tea
Catherine Kordes seedling x W. E. Chaplin
Crimson Queen - 1912 - Alexander Montgomery - hybrid tea
(Liberty x Richmond) x General MacArthur
Élégante - 1918 - Joseph Pernet-Ducher - hybrid tea
Unknown
Ethel Somerset - 1921 - Alexander Dickson II - hybrid tea
Unknown
Etoile Luisante - 1918 - Turbat - polyantha
Unknown
Eva - gen 5 (2x) - shrub
F. J. Grootendorst - 1918 - De Goey - species hybrid
Rosa rugosa Rubra x possibly Madame Norbert Levavasseur
Frau Karl Druschki - 1901 - Peter Lambert - hybrid perpetual
Merveille de Lyon x Madame Caroline Testout
George Dickson - gen 5 - hybrid tea
Gloria Mundi - 1929 - De Ruiter Innovations BV - polyantha
Sport of Superb
J. C. Thornton - 1926 - BEES (2x) - hybrid tea
Kitchener of Khartoum x Red-Letter Day
Julien Potin - 1927 - Joseph Pernet-Ducher - hybrid tea
Souvenir de Claudius Pernet x seedling
Madame Butterfly - 1918 - Hill and Company - hybrid tea
Sport of Ophelia
McGredy's Pillar - 1935 - Samuel Davidson McGredy III -
hybrid tea
Unknown
Miss Amelia Gude - 1921 - Lemon - hybrid tea
Columbia x Sunburst
Ophelia - 1912 - William, Paul and Son - hybrid tea
Possibly chance seedling of Antony Rivoire
Orange Triumph - gen 5 - polyantha
Pinocchio - gen 4 (2x) - floribunda
Queen Alexandra Rose - 1918 - Samuel McGredy II - hybrid tea
Unknown
Rapture - 1926 - Traendly & Schenck - hybrid tea
Sport of Madame Butterfly
Robin Hood - 1927 - Pemberton (2x) - shrub
Seedling x Miss Edith Cavell
Rome Glory - 1937 - Dominico Aicardi - hybrid tea
Dame Edith Helen x Sensation
Rosa foetida bicolor - species
Sport of Rosa foetida
Asia Minor
Nikolaus von Jacquin describe plant in Schönbrunn gardens,
1770's
Rosa setigera - species
Eastern United States
André Michaux describe from “Carolina inferior,” 1803
Roulettii - 1922 - Henri Correvon - miniature
Discovered by Roulet in Mauborjet, Switzerland, c.1917
Considered to be Rosa chinensis Minima
Sierra Snowstorm - 1936 - Ralph Moore - shrub
Gloire des Rosomanes x Dorothy Perkins
Solarium - 1925 - Eugène Turbat & Compagnie - species hybrid
Unknown Rosa wichurana hybrid
Soeur Thérèse - 1931 - Francis Gillot - hybrid tea
(Général Jacqueminot x Juliet)
x Souvenir de Claudius Pernet
Souvenir de Claudius Denoyle - 1920 – Chambard - climber
Château de Clos Vougeot x Commandeur Jules Gravereaux
Souvenir de George Beckwith - 1919 - Joseph Pernet-Ducher -
hybrid tea
Seedling x Lyon Rose
Tassin - 1942 - Meilland International - hybrid tea
National Flower Guild x Lemania
Gen 7
Admiral Ward - 1915 - Joseph Pernet-Ducher - hybrid tea
Seedling x Château de Clos Vougeot
Antony Rivoire - 1895 - Pernet-Ducher - hybrid tea
Docteur Grill x Lady Mary Fitzwilliam
Catherine Kordes - 1930 - hybrid tea
No information
Charles P. Kilham - gen 5 - hybrid tea
Château de Clos Vougeot -1908 - Pernet-Ducher - hybrid tea
Unknown
Columbia - 1917 - E. Gurney Hill Co. - hybrid tea
Ophelia x Mrs. George Shawyer
Commandeur Jules Gravereaux - 1908 - Jean-B. Croibier & Fils
hybrid perpetual
Frau Karl Druschki x Liberty
Condesa de Sástago - 1930 - Pedro Dot - hybrid tea
(Souvenir de Claudius Pernet x Maréchal Foch)
x Margaret McGredy
Dame Edith Helen - 1916 - Alexander Dickson II - hybrid tea
Mrs. John Laing x unknown
Dorothy Perkins - 1901 - E. Alvin Miller - rambler
Madame Gabriel Luizet x Rosa wichurana
Général Jacqueminot - 1853 - Roussel/Rousselet -
hybrid perpetual
Seedling of Gloire des Rosomanes x Géant des Batailles
General MacArthur - before 1904 - E. Gurney Hill Co. -
hybrid tea
Gruss an Teplitz
Gloire des Rosomanes - 1825 - Plantier - tea
Unknown, used as rootstock as Ragged Robin
Possibly, Slater’s Crimson and Portland rose
Juliet - 1910 - Walter Easlea (or) William Paul and Son -
hybrid perpetual
Captain Hayward x Soleil d'Or
Kitchener of Khartoum - 1917 - Alexander Dickson II -
hybrid tea
Unknown
Lemania - 1937 - Emil Heizmann (2x) - hybrid tea
Unknown
Liberty - 1900 - Alexander Dickson II - hybrid tea
Mrs. W. J. Grant x Charles J. Grahame
Lyon Rose - 1907 - Joseph Pernet-Ducher - hybrid tea
Madame Mélanie Soupert x seedling of Soleil d'Or
Madame Butterfly - gen 6 - hybrid tea
Madame Caroline Testout - 1890 - Joseph Pernet-Ducher -
hybrid tea
Madame de Tartas x Lady Mary Fitzwilliam
Madame Méha Sabatier - 1916 - Pernet-Ducher - hybrid tea
Seedling x Château de Clos Vougeot
Madame Norbert Levavasseur - 1903 - Levavasseur - polyantha
Crimson Rambler x Gloire des Polyantha
Merveille de Lyon - 1882 - Jean Pernet (père) - hybrid perpetual
Baronne Adolphe de Rothschild x Safrano
Miss Edith Clavell - 1917 - De Ruiter - polyantha
Sport of Orléans Rose
Mrs. Edward Powell - 1911 - Pierre Bernaux (fils) - hybrid tea
Unknown
National Flower Guild - 1927 - Charles Mallerin - hybrid tea
(Capt. F. Bald x Kitchener of Khartoum)
x Madame Van de Voorde
Ophelia - gen 6 - hybrid tea
Rayon d’Or - 1910 - Joseph Pernet-Ducher - hybrid tea
Madame Mélanie Soupert x Soleil d’Or
Red-Letter Day - 1914 - Alexander Dickson II - hybrid tea
Unknown
Richmond - 1904 - E. Gurney Hill Co. - hybrid tea
Lady Battersea x Liberty
Rosa chinensis - gen 5 - species
Rosa chinensis Minima - miniature
Rosa chinensis with miniaturizing trait preserved
China, spread to Mauritius
Described in England by Robert Sweet, 1810
Rosa foetida - species
Nikolaus von Jacquin’s name for hypothetical species
Rosa foetida bicolor - gen 6 - species
Rosa rugosa Rubra - species
Selection of Rosa rugosa
Sold by Jacques-Martin Cels, 1802
Rosa wichurana - gen 4 - species
Sensation - 1922 - Joseph H. Hill, Co. - hybrid tea
Hoosier Beauty x Premier
Superb - 1927 - De Ruiter Innovations BV
Sport of Orléans Rose
Souvenir de Claudius Pernet - gen 5 (2x)- hybrid tea
Sunburst - 1901 - Joseph Pernet-Ducher - hybrid tea
Unknown
W. E. Chaplin - 1929 - Chaplin Bros., Ltd - hybrid tea
Unknown
Gen 8
Baronne Adolphe de Rothschild -1868 - Pernet -
hybrid perpetual
Sport of Souvenir de la Reine d’Angleterre
Capt. F. Bald - 1919 - Alexander Dickson II - hybrid tea
Unknown
Captain Hayward - 1893 - Henry Bennett - hybrid perpetual
Seedling of Triomphe de l'Exposition
Charles J. Grahame - before 1905 - Alexander Dickson II -
hybrid tea
Unknown
Château de Clos Vougeot - gen 7 (2x) - hybrid tea
Crimson Rambler - 1893 - Charles Turner - species hybrid
Rosa multiflora
Developed by Japanese breeders
Docteur Grill - 1884 - Joseph Bonnaire - tea
Ophirie x Souvenir de Victor Hugo
Frau Karl Druschki - gen 6 - hybrid perpetual
Géant des Batailles - 1845 - Nérard - hybrid perpetual
Seedling of Gloire des Rosomanes
Gloire des Polyantha - 1886 - polyantha
Jean-Baptiste André (fils) Guillot and Pierre Guillot
Seedling of Mignonette
Gloire des Rosomanes - gen 7 - tea
Gruss an Teplitz - before 1897 - Rudolf Geschwind - Bourbon
((Sir Joseph Paxton x Fellenberg) x Papa Gontier)
x Gloire des Rosomanes
Hoosier Beauty - 1915 - Frederick Dorner & Sons - hybrid tea
Richmond x Château de Clos Vougeot
Kitchener of Khartoum - gen 7 - hybrid tea
Lady Battersea - 1901 - George Paul, Jr. - hybrid tea
Madame Abel Chatenay x Liberty
Lady Mary Fitzwilliam - 1882 - Bennett (2x) - hybrid tea
Devoniensis x Victor Verdier
Liberty - 1900 - gen 7 - hybrid tea
Madame de Tartas - 1859 - H.B. (or possibly H. Pierre) Bernède
tea
Unknown
Madame Gabriel Luizet - 1877 - Liabaud - hybrid perpetual
Seedling of Jules Margotten
Madame Mélanie Soupert - 1905 - Joseph Pernet-Ducher (2x) -
hybrid tea
Unknown
Madame Van de Voorde - 1928 - Charles Mallerin- hybrid tea
Madame Méha Sabatier x Kitchener of Khartoum
Maréchal Foch - 1918 - Levavasseur - polyantha
Sport of Orléans Rose
Margaret McGredy - gen 5 - hybrid tea
Mrs. George Shawyer - 1911 - Lowe & Shawyer - hybrid tea
Madame Hoste x Joseph Lowe
Mrs. John Laing - c. 1885 - Henry Bennett - hybrid perpetual
François Michelon x seedling
Mrs. W.J. Grant - before 1894 - Alexander Dickson II -
hybrid tea
La France x Lady Mary Fitzwilliam
Ophelia - gen 6 - hybrid tea
Orléans Rose - 1909 - Levavasseur (2x) - polyantha
Seedling of Madame Norbert Levavasseur
Premier - 1918 - E. Gurney Hill Co. - hybrid tea
Seedling of Ophelia x Mrs. Charles E. Russell
Rosa chinensis - gen 5 - species
Rosa rugosa - species
Japan, Korea
Lee and Kennedy introduce to England, 1796
Rosa wichurana - gen 4 - species
Safrano - 1839 - Beauregard - tea
Parks’ Yellow Tea-Scented Rose x Madame Desprez
Slater’s Crimson - 1789 - China
Possibly pure Rosa chinensis
Sometimes called Rosa chinensis semperflorens
Unknown Chinese breeders
East India man send from China to Gilbert Slater in England,
1789
Soleil d'Or - 1900 - Joseph Pernet-Ducher (3x) - hybrid tea
Seedling of Antoine Ducher x Rosa foetida persiana
Souvenir de Claudius Pernet - gen 5 - hybrid tea

Notes: Ancestries mostly drawn from the Helpbefind.com website and Botanica’s Roses, 2000.

Photograph: Olymipiad, the only hybrid tea to survive the dry cold of February in my yard, has no hips and most of the thorns are on the lower stems. The red rose was released in 1982 by Sam McGredy IV, the man who bred Anytime, the seed parent of Halo Sunrise; 12/19/09.

Halo Sunrise Ancestors 1

What’s still green: Arborvitae, juniper and other evergreens, Apache plume, a few roses, cholla, prickly pear, yuccas, red hot poker, grape hyacinth, hollyhock, winecup, large-leaved globemallow, oriental poppy, St. John’s wort, vinca, white sweet clover, alfalfa, sweet pea, flax, beardtongue, snapdragon, coral bells, rock rose, sea pink, large-leaved soapwort, columbine, pink and yellow evening primroses, perky Sue, Shasta daisy, tansy, anthemis, protected Mexican hat, coreopsis, purple aster, cheat grass, bases of needle and June grasses.

What’s grey, blue-grey or grey-green: Piñon, pinks, snow-in-summer, yellow alyssum, winterfat.

What’s blooming inside: Christmas cactus, aptenia, asparagus fern; .rochea and Christmas cactus leaves tinged with red.

Animal sightings: Coyote out Wednesday morning when I was leaving for work.

Weather: Snow Monday afternoon, followed by rain early Tuesday that left ice in shady places; 8:27 hours of daylight today.

Weekly update: Whenever I flip through books about roses and see ancestry notes like ‘Anytime’ x ‘Angel Face,’ I wonder what would happen if I followed every line back until it faded into an unknown. Last week I did it for Ralph Moore’s Halo Sunrise, and now know I’d find the names of 184 hybrids, 14 species, and many dead ends.

The most recent generations are dominated by floribundas, the polyantha-tea crosses first introduced by Dorus Theus Poulsen in Denmark in 1912 with Rödhätte. As soon as Henri Louis Correvon released Roulettii in 1922, men began trying to introduce the miniaturizing gene from Rosa chinensis into other roses. Poulsen’s compact bushes with their many stems of small rose clusters were the most likely ones to provide aesthetically pleasing small plants.

Polyanthas themselves resulted from an attempt to combine the virtues of tea roses with the rambling habit and multiple flower head of Rosa multiflora. Jean-Baptiste André fils introduced the first, Pâquerett, from unknown parents in France in 1873.

However, the path to creating a successful floribunda-miniature cross was not simple, and apparently included the use of more species. In the fourth generation back, Jan de Vink crossed a polyantha in some intermediate generations with a rugosa hybrid, an unknown climber and an unknown hybrid tea to make the pollen for the first commercially successful miniature, Tom Thumb.

Moore combined Tom Thumb with one of his own polyantha-floribunda crosses to produce the parents of Zee, his miniature stock. He next combined Zee with a wichurana to create the plant that Sam McGreedy combined with a floribunda to produce the parent of the Halo roses.

The first five generations of Halo Sunrise, back to Tom Thumb, follow.

Gen 1
Halo Sunrise - 1997 - Ralph Moore - miniature
(Anytime x Gold Badge) x Angel Face
Gen 2
Angel Face - 1968 - Swim - floribunda
(Circus x Lavender Pinocchio) x Sterling Silver
Anytime - 1973 - Sam McGredy IV - miniature
New Penny x Elizabeth of Glamis
Gold Badge - 1978 – Paolino - floribunda
Poppy Flash x (Charleston x Allgold)
Gen 3
Allgold - 1956 – Le Grice - floribunda
Goldilocks x Ellinor Le Grice
Charleston - 1963 - Meilland International - floribunda
Masquerade x (Radar x Caprice)
Circus - 1956 - Swim - floribunda
Fandango x Pinocchio
Elizabeth of Glamis - 1963 - floribunda
Spartan x Highlight
Lavender Pinocchio - 1948 - Gene Boerner - floribunda
Pinocchio x Grey Pearl
New Penny - 1962 - Ralph Moore - miniature
(Rosa wichuraiana x Floradora) x seedling of Zee
Poppy Flash - 1973 - Meilland - floribunda
(Dany Robin x Fire King) x (Alain x Mutabilis)
Sterling Silver - 1957 - Fisher - hybrid tea
Seedling x Peace
Gen 4
Alain - 1948 - Meilland - floribunda
(Guinée x Skyrocket) x Orange Triumph
Caprice - 1948 - Meilland International - hybrid tea
Peace x Fantastique
Dany Robin - 1958 - Meilland International - floribunda
Goldilocks x Fashion
Ellinor Le Grice - 1949 - E. B. Le Grice - hybrid tea
Mrs. Beatty x Yellowcrest (or)
Lilian x Golden Dawn
Fandango - 1950 - Swim - hybrid tea
Charlotte Armstrong x seedling
Fire King - 1959 - Meilland International - floribunda
Moulin Rouge x Fashion
Floradora - 1944 - Mathias Tantou - floribunda
Baby Château x Rosa roxburghii
Goldilocks - 1945 - Gene Boerner - floribunda
Seedling x Doubloons
Grey Pearl - 1945 - Samuel Davidson McGredy III - hybrid tea
(Mrs. Charles Lamplough x seedling)
x (Sir David Davis x Southport)
Highlight - 1957 - Herbert Robinson - floribunda
Seedling x Independence
Masquerade - 1949 - Gene Boerner - floribunda
Goldilocks x Holiday
Mutabilis - 1934 - Henri Correvon - tea
Rosa chinensis x Rosa odorata gigantea
Found on La Réunion for Vitaliano Borremeo, 1870's
Gilberto Borromeo display in Geneva, 1894
Peace - 1942 - Meilland - hybrid tea
(George Dickson x Souvenir de Claudius Pernet)
x (Joanna Hill x Charles P. Kilham)
x Margaret McGredy
Pinocchio - 1940 - Kordes (2x) - floribunda
Golden Rapture x Eva
Radar - 1953 - Meilland International - hybrid tea
Charles Mallerin x Independence
Rosa wichurana - species
China, Japan
M. E. Wichur send to botanical gardens in Munich and
Brussels, 1861
Spartan - 1955 - Gene Boerner - floribunda
Geranium Red x Fashion
Zee - 1940 - Ralph Moore - miniature
Carolyn Dean x Tom Thumb
Gen 5
Baby Château - 1936 - Wilhelm J. H. Kordes II - floribunda
Aroma x (Eva x Ami Quinard)
Carolyn Dean - 1941 - Ralph Moore - climber
Seedling, Etoile Luisante x Sierra Snowstorm
Charles Mallerin - 1951 - Meilland International - hybrid tea
(Rome Glory x Congo) x Tassin
Charles P. Kilham - 1926 - Samuel Davidson McGredy III -
hybrid tea
Unknown
Charlotte Armstrong -1940 - Lammerts - hybrid tea
Soeur Thérèse x Crimson Glory
Doubloons - 1934 - Michael Henry Horvath - species hybrid
Rosa setigera x hybrid of Rosa foetida bicolor
Eva - 1933 - Kordes - shrub
Robin Hood x J. C. Thornton
Kordes say Ophelia strain
Fantastique - 1943 - Francis Meilland - hybrid tea
Ampère x (Charles P. Kilham x ( x Capucine Chambard))
Fashion - 1949 - Gene Boerner (3x) - floribunda
Pinocchio x Crimson Glory
George Dickson - 1912 - Dickson - hybrid tea
Unknown
Geranium Red - 1947 - Gene Boerner - floribunda
Crimson Glory x seedling
Golden Dawn - 1929 - Patrick Grant - hybrid tea
Élégante x Ethel Somerset
Golden Rapture - 1933 - Kordes - hybrid tea
Rapture x Julien Potin
Goldilocks - gen 4 (2x) - floribunda
Guinée - 1938 - Mallexrin - climber
Souvenir de Claudius Denoyle x Ami Quinard
Holiday - 1948 - Gene Boerner - floribunda
McGredy's Pillar x Pinocchio
Independence - 1951 - Wilhelm J. H. Kordes II (2x) - floribunda
Baby Château x Crimson Glory
Joanna Hill - 1928 - H. H. Hill Co - hybrid tea
Madame Butterfly x Miss Amelia Gude
Lilian - 1931 - Benjamin R. Cant & Sons - hybrid tea
Unknown
Margaret McGredy - 1927 - Samuel Davidson McGredy III -
hybrid tea
Queen Alexandra Rose
Mrs. Beatty - 1926 - Benjamin R. Cant & Sons - hybrid tea
Unknown
Mrs. Charles Lamplough - 1920 - Samuel McGredy II -
hybrid tea
Frau Karl Druschki x seedling
Moulin Rouge - 1952 - Francis Meilland - floribunda
Alain x Orange Triumph
Orange Triumph - 1937 – Kordes - polyantha
Eva x Solarium
Peace - gen 4 - hybrid tea
Rosa chinensis - species
Nikolaus von Jacquin’s name for hypothetical species
Closest plant in nature is subspecies spontanea
Guizhou, Hubei, and Sichuan
Found in Yichang by Augustine Henry, 1885
Rosa odorata - species
Hypothetical species
Possibly Rosa chinensis x Rosa odorata gigantea
Found in Yunnan
Rosa odorata gigantea
NE India, N Myanmar, Yunnan, N Thailand, N Vietnam
Collett send to Europe from upper Myanmar, 1888
Rosa roxburghii - species
China, Japan
Introduced to England through Calcutta by East India Co.
Sold by Colville’s Nursery, 1825
Sir David Davis - before 1926 - Samuel McGredy II - hybrid tea
Unknown
Skyrocket - 1934 - Wilhelm J. H. Kordes II - hybrid musk
Robin Hood x J.C. Thornton
Southport - 1930 - Samuel Davidson McGredy III - hybrid tea
(George Dickson x Crimson Queen)
x Souvenir de George Beckwith
Souvenir de Claudius Pernet - 1920 - Joseph Pernet-Ducher -
hybrid tea
Constance x seedling
Tom Thumb -1935 - Jan de Vink - miniature
Roulettii x Gloria Mundi
Roulettii x (Gloria Mundi, unnamed seedling climber,
F. J. Grootendorst and/or yellow hybrid tea) (patent)
Yellowcrest - 1935 - Le Grice - hybrid tea
Unknown

Notes: Ancestries mostly drawn from the Helpbefind.com website and Botanica’s Roses, 2000.

Photograph: Dead flowers of Angel Face, father of Halo Sunrise. It’s a hipless and conventionally thorny floribunda hardy enough to survive this past week’s cold; 12 December 2009.

Halo Sunrise

What’s still green: Arborvitae, juniper and other evergreens, Apache plume, a few roses, cholla, prickly pear, yuccas, red hot poker, grape hyacinth, hollyhock, winecup, large-leaved globemallow, oriental poppy, St. John’s wort, vinca, white sweet clover, alfalfa, sweet pea, flax, beardtongue, snapdragon, coral bells, rock rose, sea pink, large-leaved soapwort, columbine, pink and yellow evening primroses, perky Sue, Shasta daisy, tansy, anthemis, protected Mexican hat, coreopsis, purple aster, cheat grass, bases of needle and June grasses.

What’s grey, blue-grey or grey-green: Piñon, pinks, snow-in-summer, yellow alyssum, winterfat.

What’s blooming inside: Christmas cactus, aptenia, asparagus fern; .rochea and Christmas cactus leaves tinged with red.

Animal sightings: Birds flit in distant trees.

Weather: The storm that hovered last weekend only brought early morning temperatures below 10, as cold as I remember in New Mexico; last rain 11/29/09; 8:33 hours of daylight today.

Weekly update: Genealogies are elegant simplifications we use to describe our ancestry. It’s satisfying to look at a family tree and see that Mary Ellen Lawler married George Henry Nason in 1875 and that she gave birth to my maternal grandmother in 1889.

When I look at a photograph taken of the woman I think of as Tessie when she was 30, I see an individual with the slender body my mother will inherit in 1912. She has none of the fullness of the women surrounding her, who may have been her sisters and Mary Ellen.

However, when I look at a picture taken when Tessie was in her 70's, I see none of the features of my mother when she died in her late 50's. I wonder if my grandmother inherited her body type from her father and her perceptions of female form from her mother, or if life experiences like multiple pregnancies and diet overrode DNA and family aesthetics.

I see the same complex interplay of genetics and expectations when I look out the study window at the fading orange hips on the Halo Sunrise rose. It’s creator, Ralph Moore, was trying to breed a miniature rose with a red blotch at the base of its petals, a characteristic only found in Iran and Afghanistan in the hulthemia species. Instead of his refinements, I see the most ethnographically pure rose in my garden, the one with more thorns and more hips than even the rugosa.

Modern roses are the product of men working to make recessive traits and random mutations permanent without losing the vigor we demand in our gardens. The ability to bloom more than once is found only in Rosa chinensis, introduced from China around 1759. Any modern rose has some chinensis among its ancestors. For Halo Sunrise, it appears nine generations back.

Miniaturization comes from a dominant gene, but one that coincides with sterility, so that it’s carriers don’t survive. The Chinese apparently found a way to capture it in their chinensis roses. Specimens found their way to Europe in the early nineteenth century from Mauritius, then lost popularity to large flowers during Victorian times. Individual plants survived in obscure gardens where one was discovered in Switzerland by Major Roulet in 1919, and introduced to gardeners in 1922 by Henri Louis Correvon.

Moore began developing his miniature roses when he pollinated one his seedlings, later called Carolyn Dean, with a rose produced by Jan de Vink in 1936 that had brought together a Roulettii and some rugosa hybrids. He became interested in enhancing the blotch after Sam McGredy IV combined one of his roses with a floribunda, Elizabeth of Glamis. McGredy’s Anytime had a lavender center.

The genealogy of Halo Sunrise simply says he crossed Anytime with Angel Face, and introduced the progeny in 1997. Moore makes clear that he crossed Anytime with itself, selected the seedling with the best blotch, and grew more seedlings from crossing them with themselves until he had an Anytime he could use.

Before he released Sunrise, he had sold five other Halo roses. The first, Halo Dolly marketed in 1992, has Anytime for the female seed parent, and a cross of Anytime and Angel Face on the male pollen side. Halo Star, also released in 1992, list Anytime and Angel Face crosses on both sides.

The first is a medium to light pink, the second more watermelon. The other early Halos are bright orange red (Today, Fire) or pink (Rainbow). Moore then crossed his Anytime selection with Golden Badge and produced a peach rose, which became the Anytime parent of Sunrise.

After Jack Harkness introduced hulthemia hybrids, Moore began combining his Halo stock with hulthemias to get even redder blotches. Persian Sunset was released in 2006, two years before he retired and three years before he died in 2009 at age 102.

Moore never mentioned where the thorns came from. In fact his Sequoia Nursery catalog for 1997 only says it’s a "vigorous, healthy bush." The most likely source is the mother of Anytime, Moore’s own New Penny which has a winchuriana - Floradora mix for the seed, and the miniaturizing Zee for pollen. Floradora was introduced in 1944 by Mathias Tantou as the result of a cross between a floribunda, Baby Château, and Rosa roxburghii.

Roxburghii, sometimes called the Burr Rose, is described by Bontanica as "angular and stiff in habit." The leaves are "distinctly hairy" and the fruit resembles "small chestnuts in their husks." The fruits are high in vitamin C and antioxidants. The efficacy of the traditional Chinese use of Ce Li to treat high cholesterol has been confirmed by several scientific teams.

Halo Sunrise got its physical form from its maternal great-great-grandfather, while mine came from my great-grandmother. It’s a bit anthropomorphic to compare human generations to rose ones, but it is clear that in both the introduction of a genetic trait will persist and manifest itself in its descendants, whether it’s desired or not.

Notes: Doug Chase recently sent me the information on Mary Ellen Lawler; he’s working on the genealogy for the immigrant Richard Nason and his four sons.

Botanica. Botanica’s Roses, 2000.

Lawrence, G. H. M. "History and Nomenclature of the Fairy Roses," American Rose Annual, 1953.

Lidwien, A. M. Dubois and D. P. de Vries. "On the Inheritance of the Dwarf Character in Polyantha x Rosa chinensis Minima (Sims) Voss F1-populations ," Euphytica 36:535-539:1987.

Moore, Ralph. "A Study of Moss and Miniature Roses," republished on Paul Barden’s Old Garden Roses and Beyond website.

_____. "Ralph Moore-60 Years of Innovative Breeding," Minirama, Fall, 1996.

Photograph: Halo Sunrise miniature rose hips, 29 November 2009.