Does anyone here have a good resource which would describe what subgenus (and section) various rose species fall under? I have some of them in my notes, but not all.
Dora

Sorry, Dora. I've never done any research on the rosa subgenera and sections, and all of the articles I'm finding on the Web cost money to access, so I'm afraid I can't help you with this.

Thanks for replying Zuzu--I was hoping to avoid some grunt work but I guess not.

Rogers Roses has a database of species roses, but I'm not sure if it is complete--plus he groups gymnocarpa in with Cinnamomeae rather than the Gymnocarpae subgenus, so I don't know whether he did that for convenience or whether the structure has changed. I also have The World Enclyclopedia of roses/Modern Roses XI (most recent version is XII), and it is all listed there by name, but it includes all of the obsolete and common names for species roses which cross reference back to the current name. (Sigh--makes me cross eyed.)
Dora

This might help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Wikipedia's too unreliable, Mike. It lists Rosa azerbaidshanica as a valid species, for instance, but Rosa azerbajdzhanica (the correct spelling of that name) was known to be a synonym of Rosa pulverulenta as far back as 1947.

Thanks Mike. I started off with the Wikipedia list, and then started cross referencing the list with the Modern Rose encyclopedia, and am modifying the list as I go through. I'm on the gymnocarpae section now, which has presented me with a bit of a dilemma because, although it is listed as a section in the Wikipedia article, it appears to no longer exist. R. gymnocarpae itself is now in the Cinnamomeae section of Eurosa, and the other roses in the section appear to have been assigned elsewhere.

I may be wrong, but there appears to be so little agreement amongst botanists as to what defines a species, not to mention how much variation is allowable within a species, that there is no single 'right' list. It will keep me busy reading reference papers at any rate.

dorab said:

I may be wrong, but there appears to be so little agreement amongst botanists as to what defines a species, not to mention how much variation is allowable within a species, that there is no single 'right' list. It will keep me busy reading reference papers at any rate.

You are very correct about this.