(1975)  Page(s) 6, Summer 1975.  
 
In the article "Breeding Yellows," by Percy H. Wright, Saskatchewan, Canada:
My yellow rose Hazeldean was originated by putting pollen of Persian Yellow on the "Scotch" rose, the subspecies Altaica, which normally blooms a week or more before Persian Yellow does. I was able to make the cross by bringing in pollen from a southern source. The flowers of Hazeldean vary a good deal in size, but the larger ones are a bit larger than the flowers of Persian Yellow, and I consider them of better form and certainly of better scent. They are sufficiently fertile that in some years about one flower in ten will set seed. The pollen is much, much more fertile than that of Persian Yellow.

(2012)  Page(s) 15-16.  Includes photo(s).
 
Spring 2012 issue.
"...We decided to use ISSR and RAPD markers inthis comparison of 'Softee' and "Jefferson Rose."...The fragments of DNA are separted according to length, creating a "fingerprint." The same rose with the same primer should consistently give the same pattern or fingerprint.
"What did we learn in the comparison of 'Softee' and "Jefferson"? All six ISSR primers and all three RAPD primers tested produced the same pattern (fingerprint) for these two roses...The data overwhelmingly point to the conclusion that "Jefferson" and 'Softee' are the same rose.

(1 Mar 2012)  Page(s) 7-11.  
 
p. 10--
"Rose growers on the frontier did not have access to botanical reference works, but they had a good memory. The initial misidentification of a rose at Kew was maintained in Canada until fairly recent times, and identification of R. laxa, Retzius/Ross Rambler as R. beggeriana was the norm."
. . . . . . . . . . .
"Ironically, F. L. Skinner, later responsible for bringing to Canada what he called “the true laxa” (the R. laxa, Retz. collected in Semipalatinsk, Siberia by USDA plant explorer Niels E. Hansen) was responsible for identifying the ‘Ross Rambler’ as R. beggeriana. In the 1935 article, Skinner was quoted as saying, “It is my firm belief that the “Ross rose” is either a strong-growing form of R. beggeriana or a natural hybrid of that species” (p. 116). But the Ross Rambler has hips like those of R. laxa, Retz., not those of R. beggeriana. The hips of R. beggeriana are small and round, about the size of a pea, not long and bottle-shaped like those of Ross Rambler and Rosa laxa, Retz.—but Skinner had never seen that in a reference work. Later, when he received a plant of R. beggeriana from Russia, he was convinced that it was not the true beggeriana because it did not look like the rose that he was accustomed to thinking of as beggeriana."

(1 Mar 2012)  Page(s) 7-11.  
 
p. 10--
"Rose growers on the frontier did not have access to botanical reference works, but they had a good memory. The initial misidentification of a rose at Kew was maintained in Canada until fairly recent times, and identification of R. laxa, Retzius/Ross Rambler as R. beggeriana was the norm."
. . . . . . . . . . .
"Ironically, F. L. Skinner, later responsible for bringing to Canada what he called “the true laxa” (the R. laxa, Retz. collected in Semipalatinsk, Siberia by USDA plant explorer Niels E. Hansen) was responsible for identifying the ‘Ross Rambler’ as R. beggeriana. In the 1935 article, Skinner was quoted as saying, “It is my firm belief that the “Ross rose” is either a strong-growing form of R. beggeriana or a natural hybrid of that species” (p. 116). But the Ross Rambler has hips like those of R. laxa, Retz., not those of R. beggeriana. The hips of R. beggeriana are small and round, about the size of a pea, not long and bottle-shaped like those of Ross Rambler and Rosa laxa, Retz.—but Skinner had never seen that in a reference work. Later, when he received a plant of R. beggeriana from Russia, he was convinced that it was not the true beggeriana because it did not look like the rose that he was accustomed to thinking of as beggeriana."

(Mar 2010)  Page(s) 11-12.  
 
"Rosa laxa Retzius: Not Always Tetraploid," by Peter Harris

"The laxa Griffith Buck used is from the laxa Niels Hansen had brought to the United States from the Semipalatinsk region of Kazakhstan in 1913.

An accession record at the University of Minnesota Horticultural Research Center conclusively links the laxa used by F.L. Skinner, Percy Wright, Robert Simonet, Griffith Buck, and others to the laxa brought back to the US by Niels Hansen in 1913 and announced and made available to the public by the USDA in early 1927.

In accession record #N2744 in the volume labeled “Fruit Breeding Farm Accessions 1923 – 1950” the Species is listed
as “Laxa Retz” and Source is listed as “from Hansen’s Stock Sioux Falls.” Although Hansen’s personal selection called ‘Semi’ (short for Semipalatinsk, where the seeds were collected) was apparently a light pink, most plants grown from the seeds were white. The chain of transmission of laxa in this case is from Hansen’s program in South Dakota to the Minnesota Fruit Breeding Station (Excelsior, MN) as seeds received on August 23, 1927, and from there through Arthur N. Wilcox in Minnesota to F.L. Skinner in Manitoba and thus to various other rose breeders."
. . . . . . . . .
"In a letter to Griffith Buck (February 22, 1954), Skinner summarized it: 'Morden received their laxa from me and I got it origionally [sic] from Dr. Wilcox of Minnesota who in turn got it from the U.S.D.A so now you have its full history.'”

(Apr 2011)  Page(s) 6-8.  Includes photo(s).
 
"The Mysterious Parentage of ‘Thérèse Bugnet’", by André Imbeault and Peter Harris

Clears up a long-time misunderstanding about the parentage of ‘Thérèse Bugnet’. Bugnet's own notes and his 1941 article, “The Search for Total Hardiness” (American Rose Annual, pp. 111-115), make it clear that the 'acicularis' mentioned in the parentage is Bugnet's nickname for a seedling, and is not the species R. acicularis.