Are Roses Self Pollinating?

Wild Roses

• There are about 12 dozen species of wild roses from which innumerable other cultivars have descended. Some of these cultivars occur naturally, while others have been hybridized by humans always striving for a sweeter, longer-lasting, brighter rose. Wild roses often open during the day, and close for the night, and a bloom lasts approximately three days. When it no longer closes at night, it is already dying and making way for new blooms.

Pollination

• The process of pollination is that of fertilizing the female part of the flower with the pollen produced by the male part of the flower. Roses are complete flowers, unlike some other flowers that do not possess both the male and female parts for pollination. The sweet scent of roses attracts pollinators like bees and butterflies and other insects whose hairy bodies pick up the pollen while they drink the rose's nectar. They then brush against the rose's ovaries, successfully pollinating it so that it can grow fertile seeds in the hip below the flower head.

Natural Hybridization

• While hybridization is usually thought of as a man-made process to produce specific traits in roses, it also happens in the wild. The same bee that pollinated one rose with that rose's own pollen then flies to a neighboring bush that may be an entirely different cultivar, and pollinates the new rose with pollen from the first. The seeds that develop in the second rose will have some traits of both roses. This is also called cross pollination.

Self-Pollination

• When a rose does not need to rely on insects or man for its pollination it is called a self-pollinating rose. Noted in some varieties of wild climbing roses, the self-pollinating mechanism happens when the rose is past its prime, no longer shuts at night, and the petals begin to fall away. At the same time, the male stamens of the flower rise up and curl over toward the female ovaries, dusting them with any remaining grains of pollen not taken by other pollinators. To tell if your rose possesses this mechanism, observe the bloom as it ages, and note any changes in stamen position and their location in respect to the rose ovaries.