Chalice
I don’t find the flowers all that interesting or unusual and there were only about a dozen on my 8 year old plant in 2020. It is fairly easy to obtain so obviously others are more excited about it than I am. Saunders himself called it “a corker” and “a great beauty” in his notebook! It was one of the first hybrids he introduced and it was a new form so that may have influenced his comments. Would he have been as excited about it in 1950?
Be sure to give it some room.
i
| Cultivar: | Chalice |
| Year: | 1929 |
| Seedling No: | 1578. Page 58 of Saunders’ Notebook I |
| Parentage: | 4: lactiflora ‘Primavere’ X macrophylla |
| Flower: | Color: | very light pink, fades to pure white |
| Form: | single, large (7-8″) flowers, 8 petals | |
| Blooms: | Week 4 | |
| Carpels: | generally 2, light colored (grey?), woolly | |
| Stigmas: | dark red | |
| Disc: | white (Silvia Saunders’ notes) | |
| Stamens: | filaments red at base, shading to yellow | |
| Plant: | Habit: | somewhat spreading |
| Foliage color: | medium green, conspicuous red stems | |
| Foliage form: | large leaves showing macrophylla heritage, not lobed | |
| Height: | 36″ (reported) but mine is 23″ in 2022 and 40″ wide | |
| Recommendation: | Collectors’ plant |
| Availability: | Several specialty nurseries |
