April 29, 2024: Kim, your double yellow banksiae flowers from the hip of single yellow lutescens parallels the experience I had raising my first lutescens from seed. I read that Jesse Mould, who lived on the Banks Peninsula in New Zealand had the single yellow lutescens. I wrote to her and In 1991 she sent me 29 hips from which I recovered 67 seeds. Seventeen seedlings sprouted, with the first blooms appearing on two plants in 1995, both single white. In 1996 five more bloomed, three single white, one double white and one double yellow. In 1997 another single white and a double yellow. In 1998 the last eight seedlings bloomed and I finally got three single yellow lutescens with three double yellow, one double white and a final single white. So the final score was seven single white, two double white, five double yellow and the three single yellow lutescens which was just under 18% of total seeds sprouted. It took seven years from planting to finally get those three lutescens!
And in addition to all four flower types, there was variation in smooth or prickly canes, too. I did not positively confirm that all the hips came from Jesse’s lutescens plant but I can’t imagine she would mix in the other species or whether she even grew them since I specifically wrote about and asked for lutescens. I’ve read others had a similar experience with seed from a single source. Could it be that a single plant can produce all four species? And if so, then all these species must be botanically renamed as forma of the original species. But I guess that’s already accomplished by their double names.
I will post some photos in the photos file.