I have seen similar discussions before. A breeder died before a rose was released so it is argued the rose must have been bred by someone else. Dee Bennett died in 1987 and roses bred by her are still being released. I know friends have roses she bred in their gardens that may be released in the future. I hope sometime in the future that people won't argue that a rose released 20 years after Dee's death couldn't have been bred by her.
Maybe. But in this case we only have "Dorner" as the breeder, one of the sons was also called Frederick Dorner and there is no mention of roses in the website article.
In the end it really does not matter much which Dorner it was who applied the pollen. The Dorner operation was of the European family business tradition contemporary with those of the Pernet, Ducher, Kordes and Meilland and other families where breeding efforts spanned generations. Early ARS annuals mention Hoosier Beauty, for instance, as being a product of Frederick Dorner and Sons. Thier carnation work was the Dorner specialty and the same can obviously be said for that.
I have no idea who bred the roses. I had just seen several discussions and it always seemed the breeder was in doubt because they died before the rose was released. I didn't post then because I thought someone would bring up that flaw in the discussion. Your statement "As Frederick Dorner seems to have died 1910, the roses were bred by one of his sons." made me think you might want to be reminded that roses are released after the death of the breeder sometimes. I appreciate the work you do here and meant no ill will.
I apologize if you had the impression that I was offended. I, too, was trying to explain the reasoning for my comment. Wherever we can, we try to assign the breeding to a specific person, not a generic family. This is not so easy in cases like e.g. Kordes, which was mentioned above, where the family nowadays seems only to be managers, and the breeding is done by employees of the company.
I just wanted to make sure there was no offense intended. I enjoy reading the discussions about the breeding. It is a difficult task sometimes. I decided (finally) to mention the thought about the release of a rose after the death of a breeder. Please keep up the good work and know that others are reading with interest even if we don't comment.
It may be possible for someone to determine the details of Frederick Dorner's rose hybridizing efforts but it would take some research. A starting point would be the papers of his son Herman Dorner which are archived at the University of Illinois library, for which see:
