Of Roses and Stripes

It is a truth universally acknowledged that most roses are pink (or red, or white, or any other color except blue). It seems that the best roses come in solid colors, and that's also how most people like them.

Double Delight

However,  every once in a while one comes upon a rose that's bicolored...

'HRG Mottled Gallica', maybe Belle de Crecy

...or mottled (with irregular  blotches of another color)...

Handel

...or picoteed (edges in a contrasting color)...

The Imposter

...or spotted...

Variegata di Bologna

...or striped.



















People seem to react strongly to these unusual blooms, either loving or hating such bold contrasts of color. I confess that in my heart I find it difficult to love them because they seem a bit busy, but I appreciate them as a collector, and have found room for a few.

Camille Pisarro

A lot of striped roses originate as genetic mutations (called "sports") of a solid color rose. When such mutations are stable (i.e. consistently producing striped flowers and not reverting to the original rose), they may be named and distributed to the rose-growing public.

Rockin' Robin

Since these mutations are spontaneous and cannot easily be obtained through breeding, and sometimes even with vegetative propagation, roses with color quirks are a much rarer sight than solid color ones.

Vanity

What interests me in striped roses is that, unlike solid color roses,  no two striped blooms are exactly alike.

Camille Pisarro

 Very often, one bloom will show much more of one color while the bloom right next to it will be mostly the other color.

George Burns

The pattern of stripes never looks the same either.

Most striped blooms I have seen age gracefully, fading gently to a nice soft color, as in the picture below, although striping is sometimes lost in an old bloom.

Camille Pisarro

Careless Love

Of all the thousands of rose images I have taken there are only two (at right and below) that illustrate a rare process of a striped rose reverting to its solid color parent right in the middle of one bloom.

Careless Love

Both of these are of a Hybrid Tea called Careless Love, a striped sport of Red Radiance, which itself is a sport of Radiance, a solid pink Hybrid Tea (sheesh, this is complicated). In these pictures Careless Love is gradually reverting to its pink grandmother, Radiance, which is probably the most genetically stable of the three cultivars.

Careless Love

Above, whole canes of Careless Love (the striped rose) are producing sold pink blooms of Radiance. If these canes are not cut out entirely, with time the whole bush will revert, and little or no striping will occur. Interesting to see Nature at work.

Candy Cane