• #198
• Seedling No. 105/2019

Bred by M.S. Viraraghavan (India, 2019).

Species Cross.  

Light pink.  Small to medium, single (4-8 petals) bloom form.  

After the 2019 World Regional Rose Conference, Nanyang, China, a group of us friends, visited Little Jiang as we called him -- his actual name is Jiang Shengzhi - to see his pioneering work on the many rose species of China which he had botanised and collected and was growing in his greenhouses. Viru and Little Jiang had deep conversations about breeding with these rare species. When we left, L, J. gave Viru a vial of pollen of the cross ( R.ecae x R xanthina). As soon as we returned home to Kodaikanal Viru looked around the garden for a suitable hybrid gigantea seed parent, and he saw our Naga Belle. Promptly he made the cross, S. No 105 , on 14th May 2019 and by 2nd December that same year he had seed to sow and sprout. A couple of seedlings came up, and one grew tall and straight. , which was serial numbered 198. Yesterday the seedling flowered for the first time. How delighted Viru would have been to see this flower, sadly he is not there. The seedling is strong, and obviously the cross is genuine, since Naga Belle has medium to dark pink fully double Hybrid Tea shaped flowers. So here we have a rose which has the genes of the rose species gigantea, ecae and xanthina. I would be happy to send material to any rose breeder who would be interested, to carry on Viru’s rose breeding programme and goals, in new directions.