The yellow Lady Banks is completely thornless. I do not know about the white one, but if one of yours has thorns, it is NOT the yellow one.

Jackie

Virginia, you just might see bloom on one or both of your cuttings, since they are technically from "old wood" that grew last year and the cells may thus be "programmed" to bloom.

:-)

~Christopher

Thanks, Jackie- none of the blighters have thorns, so unfortunately, that won't provide a clue.

Christopher, these are still fairly small plants, and the 'Lady Banksia' roses around here are already blooming... do you think they might set blooms on a later schedule? I have heard of first-year once-bloomers flowering later in the year, but I'm not sure I'll bank on it (haha- get it?)...

Probably best to go back to the source of the cuttings, and get some more from the white rose. And label them this time. I didn't label before since I thought I wouldn't need to know unless/until they survived long enough to bloom. These were the first rose cuttings I ever took, and I have 5 plants... possibly all survivors are the same color, but probably not.

Thanks,

Virginia

Hey Jeri-

I think there may be more than one 'Snowflake' because this one is supposedly an exceptionally fragrant form of the species that Robert Basye grew from R. banksiae seed when he was selecting for disease resistance.

The blooms in the photo don't look like 'Fortuniana', but Kim mentioned that it looks like the species. The leaves on my plant look very much like the leaves on my R. banksiae plants.

I don't know how Fort got confused with 'Snowflake', or even if this is the 'Snowflake' that someone once got confused with Fort, but I guess that when Greg Grant started selling this selection at the SFA plant sales, he may have used Dr Basye's name for it? I'm guessing that he may have been a student of Dr Basye at Texas A&M?

Oh, the plot thickens... I just went looking for the source of the info from the SFA plant sale listing and the name is now a bit different:

Rosa banksia ‘Fragrant Snowflake’ (Fragrant Snowflake Lady Banks Rose): An intoxicatingly fragrant delicate, single white Lady Banks rose. A vigorous seedling selected by the late Robert Bayse from seed from Italy. He was looking for an easier to root form for a roostock and for blackspot resistant breeding stock. It’s the most fragrant rose I’ve ever grown.

Maybe when Greg Grant became aware of the name confusion, he altered it to 'Fragrant Snowflake'. When I was researching the rose before I bought it (a few weeks ago), I did not see this newer name...

Hoping this is a bit clearer than mud,

Virginia

In CA, the plants sold as "Snowflake" are all 'Fortuniana' -- an error originating with and perpetuated by Monrovia Nursery. I've seen row upon row of them in local nurseries.
Fort is also very commonly sold as "White Lady Banks."
But, FWIW, R. banksia banksia ("White Lady Banks") has a wonderful, rich, strong violet fragrance. (FWIW, 'Fortuniana' also has that fragrance.)
Walk out the door of the "Rose Tree Hotel" in Tombstone, AZ, into the shade under their massive banksia, and the fragrance hits you like a ton of bricks. It's magic.

Most older gardens here have a yellow 'Lady Banksia' (as I grew up hearing it called), and each spring I'd try to visit my grandparents at least once during the time when theirs would be blooming. It was a spectacular thing to see, but I don't really recall the fragrance.

The white version is less common here, and if I've encountered it in full bloom, it was during pine pollen season, when my already iffy sense of smell is further diminished. I'm hoping that if I have my own plants, I can take great whiffs of the fragrance without anyone wondering what I'm up to. And if 'Fragrant Snowflake' is the most fragrant rose Greg Grant has ever grown, I figure that even I will be capable of smelling its perfume.

I've seen photos of the Tombstone rose, and it's pretty amazing.

If Monrovia decided to sell Fort under a marketing name of 'Snowflake', that may have prompted the name change of this other rose. If there has been a name change.

But back to my original question... do you know if the white and yellow 'Lady Banks' roses can be distinguished from one another if blooms aren't present?

Thanks,

Virginia

Hi Virginia. I'm sorry to say that I don't remember there being any noticeable difference between the mature plants other than flower colour... have never seen R Banksia babies though, so maybe there could be some difference there..

Comtesse :¬{

I'm wondering -- I recall that when the yellow form sends out new growth, there is some coppery color to the new expanding leaves. I don't know if the white one does that, but if not, that would be a way to differentiate them vegetatively. If someone with a white one could chime in on the new growth color?

Thank you, Comtesse- I had thought at one point that I could tell the difference between the leaves of some of the plants vs. the leaves of the others, but in retrospect, I think it was just older growth vs. newer growth on plants at different stages of growth.

It is possible that all the cuttings I took from one plant have failed to survive, and all that I have are yellow OR white, but I think it's more likely that I have some of each.

Dr. Manners, all of my unlabeled plants have that nice coppery new growth, and so does the 'Fragrant Snowflake'.

I suspect that if there were a reliable way to distinguish these plants from one another someone at this forum would know about it, given the collective wisdom to be found here. Once I do have them sorted by bloom color, I will be sure to keep an eye out for any other differences, though...

In the meantime, I'll just revisit the established white 'Lady Banksia' for a few more cuttings.

Many thanks,

Virginia

...according to Roger Phillips, the leaves of Lutea are larger and softer than the white form.... I don't know if this helps at all, Virginia...

Roger's roses

Marlorena, that might be true, but the more I look at the Banksiae, the more impressed I am with the leaf variability of each plant, both in terms of size and color. And as my young plants mature, they look more alike in terms of having similar variations of leaf size and color.

When I go visit them next, I will try to compare and contrast leaves of the mature parent plants to see if I see any such difference.

Virginia

Take this with a grain of salt but my recollection is that the yellow has a slightly more yellow color to the foliage. I recall the white foliage being darker, slightly bluer and maybe glossier. But this could have been a random variation or just my imagination.

Ooh, I really think you might be right, Belmont. Or is it just my unreliable memory + suggestibility?!! And now I think the white (leaves) may have been a little smaller, too.

I do wish I could go back and check. D*mmit...

-:¬l