Rosa moschata hybrids
(W.R.S., D.R.G.)
hybrid musk roses
Scrambling shrub, ± deciduous; stems often long and climbing to c. 4 m high or forming an extensive mound of intertwining, arching and layering branches, glabrous; armature of scattered, unequal, compressed, flattened, falcate prickles. Lvs with (2)-3-4 pairs of leaflets; petiole 18-30 mm long, usually with few to many glandular hairs and pricklets; stipules completely adnate, undulate and fringed with long broad-based eglandular hairs and short glandular hairs, otherwise glabrous. Lamina of leaflets 25-60 × 15-40 mm, elliptic to broadly elliptic (terminal one sometimes almost orbicular), rather deep or dark green and somewhat shining above, glabrous above and beneath; margins prominently serrate; base ± rounded; apex ± rounded or acute to shortly cuspidate. Fls c. 20-40 in loose clusters, single, 40-60 mm diam.; pedicels with numerous glandular hairs, with or without eglandular hairs. Sepals lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, acuminate or long-acuminate, tomentose inside, ± hairy, at least near margins, and with scattered to numerous glandular hairs outside; outer sepals often with 2-4 linear-elliptic lobes. Petals 20- c. 30 mm long, broadly obovate, white or creamy white. Styles free but forming a column, well-exserted, hairy. Fr. not seen.
N.: Whareorino (S. Auckland), Wallaceville (Hutt Valley).
Cultivated hybrids 1966
Roadsides and around forest remnants near old homesteads.
FL Nov-Jan.
The hybrid musk roses have only occasionally been collected wild but have most likely escaped from cultivation much more widely than indicated above; Steen (op. cit.), for example, mentioned R. moschata and its hybrids several times as having escaped from cultivation and noted cvs other than those represented by the few specimens seen in herbaria. Musk roses are very difficult to define as a group because different cvs may have different parentage; parents include climbing roses such as R. multiflora and shrub roses such as R. chinensis or some of its hybrids, as well as R. damascena Miller, damask rose. Hybrid musk roses have a ± climbing habit and single, white or creamy white, fragrant, musk-scented fls. Most of the plants described above greatly resemble and some perhaps belong to R. 'Dupontii' which is probably R. damascena × R. moschata (Thomas 1965, op. cit.). However, a specimen of this cv. from a named collection of old roses has less glandular infls than the wild specimens. R. moschata is a parent of many other hybrids, including the erect and semi-climbing noisette roses which are cultivated but not wild in N.Z.
R. moschata does not occur wild and its origin is unknown. Strangely, it appears to have almost disappeared from cultivation by the mid 19th century and to have been replaced by the closely related, hairier, Himalayan R. brunonii Lindley, Himalayan musk rose. The latter is grown in N.Z. but is not confirmed as being wild here.
Specimens of wild plants of this group have been misidentified as R. bracteata Wendl., Macartney rose, but this unrelated Chinese sp. has stout, paired prickles, usually near the petiole base, and prominent leafy bracts around the white fls. It is cultivated in N.Z. but has been very much overshadowed by its popular hybrid, cv. 'Mermaid', with large creamy yellow, single fls.
