Celsiana lookalike - Indica Major

Hi all,

I found the following rose at the local cemetery. The grave was marked 1906. I didn't think to take a camera, but i nicked a couple of cuttings and a flower to id it when i got home. The shrub was a massive thicket, about 2m tall and 1.5m wide. It had small leaves, and a fe small flowers (about 3cm wide) with white centres and pink/lilac edges and bright yellow stamens.

The closest rose that i've found online was the Celsiana, however the pics i've seem of Celsiana seem to indicate that it's quite a large flower.

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When you say 'thicket' does this mean it was suckering away from the main plant of was it a bunch of basal shoots coming up from the centre? Indica Major is a likely candidate. Mine shows flowers ranging from very double to completely single. IM has no scent that I can detect, small flowers that appear in Spring, does not repeat, is fiercly thorny, and strikes easilt from cuttings (it was used as an understock which is why it is often found in cemeteries).

This is the range of flowers I get on mine:

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I resurveying a boundary once in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland and came across a couple of old graves. There was a scragally rose groing on one of the graves and another stalky one nearby. Thinking that I had found a couple of long lost roses I took a couple of cuttings and ended up with one red which I think was Dr Phoey and one bit of multiflorer.

Obviously the root stock of a couple of long gone plants.

Hello again,

Haha, trust me to grab a cutting from understock! I might grow it anyway seeing as the roses were quite pretty, and it would probably have good root genes to mix with my other roses.

I couldn't really tell where the canes were coming from, it was overgrown and had lots of dead wood obscuring the centre.

Simon, the Indica Major looks like a good candidate. You're right, very little scent, however it wasn't very thorny. It had tiny little thorns and had a furry stuff on the stem below the flower. The stamens were really bright yellow too.

Seeing how variable the flowers are, I would presume that some of these other attributes can be quite variable from plant to plant. However I do have some lingering hope that it isn't just rootstock

The white fury stuff under the flowers almost seals the deal on it being 'Indica Major'... that's mildew and IM is a mildew magnet! It has terrific strong root genes. I have three seedlings that are are 'Indica Major' x Multiflora that I bred to use as understocks and these are the strongest roots I have ever seen on a seedling. At a height of about 15cm I had to repot it from a 17cm (H) x 10cm (W) pot because it had filled it and was trying to escape through the bottom and after a year it had filled a 20cm pot. It's now in the ground and growing nicely. It's not a very pretty rose, flower-wise, but it sure is a doer. I'm hoping it will make good understocks for standards.

Thanks for the id. I'd say it's a case closed