Margaret... the polyantha collection at Ruston's

Hi Margaret,

I was wondering whether in the polyantha collection at Rustons you had 'Baby Faraux' or 'Raymond Privat'? I'm trying to ID one I have that I can't tell apart.. I think you already know about it from discussions here in the past. I'm wanting to try and solve this one once and for all because I have a seedling from it that is quite amazing in growth and health which is about to flower for the first time... I'd like to get its pedigree right because I'm beginning to feel it is going to be an important breeder for me.

Here's what I know etc:

* the plant came from a small backyard nursery here labelled 'Magenta miniature rose'.
* They were small struck cuttings of a plant they had in the garden growing to about 40-50cm tall.
* The flowers have a rich fruity fragrance. It was a hot day when we bought them and the trip home in the car was almost nauseating; the fragrance was almost overpowering... HMF says 'Baby Faraux' has a mild grape fragrance...
* It blooms in flushes but is stingy with its rebloom.
I have 'Sweet Chariot' from named stock and it resembles this but I am beginning to think it is not SC because SC grows quite long lax canes that kind of arch gracefully whilst this one is far more upright and rigid. It is also not as well foliated as SC. SC has a wonderful pleasant scent.
* Raymond Privat is said to have an unpleasant strong scent. I don't know what that means.. unpleasant how/why? What does it smell like? etc
* It sets loads of small red hips. The seeds germinate very easily. It doesn't, however, set selfed seed (typical of a lot of polys) as every seed I've ever germinated has always so different from the parent as to rule out selfing (like my seedling mentioned above is very definately 'it' x multiflora... no question). SC is more like a poly than a mini and also doesn't self easily. It's OP seedlings are, so far without exception, the strongest most healthy roses I have ever grown... so much more so than the parent plant in question here.
*it has so far stayed small, to about 30cm after three years in the ground. I have noticed this year, however, that it is making longer basals. Maybe it just has a really long settling in period.
*It often gets a white streak on the flower and does not seem as double as my SC is.
*It has a wonderful deep purple colour early ni the season. As it gets hotter this becomes a lighter hot pink. If grown in semi-shade it retains more of the dark purple colour. It does not, however, burn in the sun.

What I would love to do is either grow this rose side by side with either 'Baby Faraux', 'Raymond Privat' or both as well as with my SC plants. Alternatively I can send a whole plant to you to be grown with the above plants for evaluation once I strike some cuttings.

If anyone else has either 'Baby Faraux' or 'Raymond Privat' from named sources I would love to obtain budwood/cuttings to propagate to help solve this mystery.

I'll add photos to this as it flowers. The only photos I have aren't very helpful:

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This is my 'Sweet Chariot'

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and

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I haven't heard of a named Raymond Privat in Australia. There's a foundling called "Grafton Pink", previously, and possibly still, available from a nursery in Grafton, which someone IDed as Raymond Privat when they saw RP overseas. If anyone's heading that way we'd like a plant!
Renmark has a very young cutting-grown plant of Baby Faurax from Patricia, taking off well but too small for cuttings this year. The nurseries tell me it's hard to propagate and weakly; I wonder if that just applies to budded plants. Polyanthas generally strike readily from cuttings.
I have Sweet Chariot here but haven't looked at it closely. My two bushes are fairly upright.
Would be pleased to try cuttings of your plant.
Spring is very late this year, and everything's too whippy for cuttings yet.

I'll strike them, Margaret, and send you rooted plants

Thank you!

Simon, this might help some, when I was at the rose nursery we had Baby Faurax budded in 1990 and previous years. The wood came from Ruston's in 1989, so I am guessing they "might" still have some original wood. The desciption given to us was "Clusters of small lavender-purple flowers, fragrant and freely borne"

No, I think the old one at Ruston's died, that's why we had to source it from elsewhere for the Collection.

Margaret, I have a spare plant of it so if you PM me your address I'll try and find some time over the next week or so to lift it, bag it, and post it Opinions are varied as to its ID on RHA too.