I have never seen a rose look as if it has lost its chlorophyll like this. If it was turning "autumn foliage", it wouldn't be a whole section like this. It's as if that branch has mutated, like the pieces of red, pink or yellow cactus which have to be grafted to green pieces so they feed themselves. It appears the remainder of the plant in the back ground looks normal, or is that a different plant? Kim

I had the same kind of thing happen to one cane on 'Tropicana' this summer and lower down I found that there was canker near the base of the cane. The rest of the plant was healthy.

Smiles,
Lyn

Kim, yes the rest of the plant was normal. It was concentrated on one cane. That cane also had strange coloration. It looked like it had a whitish stripe down the side. So perhaps it was damaged at some point as Lyn says. We were all fascinated, but were afraid it was diseased.

I agree, not a disease, just take the cane out.

Presuming it isn't contagious nor otherwise damaging to the plant, it would be an interesting novelty to attempt budding for preservation. The lack of chlorophyll would make it quite susceptible to sun scald and it wouldn't be able to feed itself, but it may be able to be maintained like the brightly colored cacti budded to normal pieces. No, thank you, I wouldn't like cuttings nor bud wood. That would fry like all get out here in this sun, but it is an interesting anomaly and I'd love to know what caused it. Kim

A past president of the ARS asked me about this sort of thing as well as she had it (you guessed it) on one cane of a HT in Louisiana.

As Roseek notes, it looks as if there's no chlorophyll development, but the more reddish color of the newer growth really does say that the Chlorophyll hasn't worked at all.

Any gene jockeys out here?

I emailed Malcolm to bring it to his attention. Perhaps he has other ideas? Should be interesting! Kim

It's pretty and does look like fall color. I don't think it would be of much help in feeding the plant though, more of a drain really.

It's just . . . WRONG.

I personally would cut it off.

I suspect a chimaera (mutation) that caused the loss of the ability to make chlorophyll. Similar to the ornamental cactus plants that are grafted, with a red, orange, or yellow growth on top of the normal green rootstock. Agreed with all of the above that, while attractive, it may be difficult to maintain, in that it should be sunburn susceptible and completely unable to feed itself. Pruning it away should fix the problem, in that such mutations are not "contagious" to other parts of the plant.

Lol, Jeri, I guess you're not into fall colors much!

It is hard to tell if any of the hips were from the mutant branch. If so, some hybridizers may be interested in trying to germinate the seeds. If future flowers do form on the mutant branch, some hybridizers may be interested in using the pollen.

The article below is in Russian, but an English summary is give.

http://www.irbis-nbuv.gov.ua/cgi-bin/irbis_nbuv/cgiirbis_64.exe?C21COM=2&I21DBN=UJRN&P21DBN=UJRN&IMAGE_FILE_DOWNLOAD=1&Image_file_name=PDF/apd_2014_7_1_13.pdf

A regular Google search using the search terms albino and plant turns up some interesting background reading.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=albino+plant

Here is a link that might be useful: link for Russian scientific article above

This post was edited by henry_kuska on Mon, Aug 25, 14 at 19:50

We did cut it off. I do have some of the cuttings, but I don't know if it would duplicate or it was from an injury. I guess I could try it.

Thanks everyone. I've been telling my society about GardenWeb and that you all would have the answer.