I posted similarly on RC, so some may have seen this posting.

I have a four year old lovely Sunstruck HT bush that was slow to establish but finally the last years Fall flush and now this Spring has really taken off.

The blooms are large brilliant orange with a reddish reverse and have a neat peacock pattern to the back of each rose petal of gold through the reddish background color.

Today while on my hands and knees weeding near the bush I notices a large white bloom just starting to open where there shouldn't have been any white blooms. I was very surprised to figure out this white bloom is growing on my Sunstruck bush.

The bloom color is the only difference as the foliage, stem, bloom size etc. is all the same. The petals are ice white with a pink/lavender reverse and have the distinct peacock shaped veining running white through the pink/lavender reverse side background color. It is GORGEOUS. Curiously, as I got to really looking hard I discovered two more white blooms on the same bush doing the same thing. Each one is growing at the end of a stem about 10" long that has sprouted right below where a pruning cut was made on a large main basal cane this past early Spring pruning time. Two are still just coming open and the third I must have somehow missed taller up in the bush as the bloom has been open for at least a week and is just starting to go down.

I don't know if these are identical sports or reversions or just what they are. Researching on HMF showed the breeding of Sunstruck to be Sunset Celebration X (VoodooXSeedling), so it isn't a sport and can't be a reversion I don't think.

I thought a reversion was like when the apricot blooming Maid of Honor HT sport of the orange/yellow blooming Folklore has just a stem or two that will suddenly bloom a couple of the original orange/yellow bloom of the mother Folklore parent while the rest of the bush continues to bloom the sported apricot color. In other words the particular stem "reverts" back to the sport parent. Since Sunstruck isn't a sport, I don't think it can revert to anything. Right???

As far as sports go, I thought that you would really only get one stem that could have multiple blooms with whatever sport mutation occurring being apparent. In this case it is the white color instead of the gold. I don't think I have heard of a bush with three identical sports on it at the same time. I do know of instances like Peter Alonso's Bee's Knee's that has sported some 6-8 very different new miniature roses but I think they were just on one stem and there were multiple blooms on that stem but all were identical to each other.

I just don't really know what I have on my hands here, but I am very interested in it and would like to know what to do.

I am not a good cuttings propagator trying to get an own root plant to grow but since I have three, I thought I could go ahead and get a cutting and try own-root propagating it. I don't have to cut the entire stem off the bush and really don't want to so that I can see if it puts out and more white blooms.

I have also considered sending budwood off to be budded to multiflora rootstock to get some grafted plants that way. I sent some budwood from a 35 year old Peace bush and had it done this way and got five good strong budded maidens from it that made some very nice new "old" Peace bushes that look way better than modern clones do.

I think I could do that without cutting the entire stem from the Sunstruck bush as well so that I could still try to get more white blooms and see if these stems bloom true.

What do you experienced rosarians think I have here with these three white blooms??

What do you suggest I do to try and get a bush of all white Sunstruck blooms to grow?? Would it be stable do you think???

I don't know and at am loss and would appreciate any help someone can give me on this.

These are beautiful exhibition quality blooms with great foliage and I would hate to screw these up and lose them.

I appreciate your help as always.

Thanks,

John Moody