Newsletter  (Feb 2017)  Page(s) 6-8.  Includes photo(s).
 
[From "Help Me Find "General Vallejo's Yellow Banksiae" Rose", by Don Gers, pp. 6-8]
Growing in the courtyard of General Mariano G. Vallejo's home, Lachryma Montis, in Sonoma is a very different double yellow Banksiae rose, larger in all its parts. The double yellow Rosa banksiae lutea commonly found in California has a flower diameter of 3.3 cm (about the size of a half dollar) with 40 petals per flower and a pedicel 4.2 cm long. But "General Vallejo's Yellow Banksiae" has a flower diameter of 4.4 cm (about the size of a silver dollar) with 75 petals per flower and a pedicel 6.5 cm long (the length of a toothpick). This larger flowered, double yellow Banksiae also appears to be rare, so far found in only five locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. And interestingly, four of those locations are associated with General Vallejo during his lifetime.
It was first discovered in 1992 at Pagani Ranch in the Valley of the Moon near Glen Ellen and later the same day at Vallejo's home in Sonoma. Ninety-three year old Violet Pagani declared the rose was already growing on her parent's property when they bought the ranch in the late 19th century. General Vallejo passed the ranch on his trips from Sonoma to Santa Rosa.
Several years later a rose friend, Judith Serin, found it in the Sunnyside district of San Francisco. Judith suggested it might be the Banksiae rose 'Jaune Serin' mentioned by Thomas Rivers in 1846 as having "larger flowers...a really fine and vigorous growing variety." It's also possible "General Vallejo's Yellow Banksiae" is the result of chromosome doubling, an amphidiploid, and we hope Dr. Malcolm Manners will find out that.
And just last year we found "General Vallejo's Yellow Banksiae" at two additional locations. It is growing along the eaves on the oldest remaining adobe at Mission Santa Clara, built in 1822, and also on the 1844 Mexican land grant of Rancho Cañada de Pogolimi at Valley Ford on the Sonoma County coast. This rancho was deeded to the widow of James Dawson, one of several American sailors General Vallejo sent to settle the coast as a counter to the Russian presence at Ft. Ross. In a curious historical footnote: James Dawson was originally supposed to share ownership of Rancho Estero Americano with his fellow sailor Edward McIntosh, but only McIntosh's name ended up on the deed. So the outraged Dawson sawed their cabin in half and moved his half across the creek which eventually became the Rancho Cañada de Pogolimi.