**4. Conclusions**

**Figure 6.** Rose cuttings for multiplication. Sterile rose dormant stems were conditioned to break dormancy. Note the

54 Using Old Solutions to New Problems - Natural Drug Discovery in the 21st Century

**Figure 7.** Mass rosehip plant regeneration from active buds of well characterized rosehip genotypes. A, active buds in re‐ generation media; B, regenerated rose plant; C, plant multiplication in rooting media; and D, acclimation in greenhouse.

active buds sprouting.

With the increasing demands for natural heath products, plant biodiversity is being thor‐ oughly revisited. The genus *Rosa* has a complex taxonomy that is still being investigated with scrutiny. East of the Rocky Mountain, *Rosa* species belonging to *R. carolina* complex in the *Cinnamomae* section include five diploid species, three tetraploid species and their natural hybrid. Several of these species as well as their interspecific hybrids are encountered on Prince Edwards Islands, Canada. A commercial rosehip production program using wild selected ecotypes has been developed and elite selections with high yielding potential have been identified and agronomic practices set for field management. The collection has been charac‐ terised using a combined morphological, cytological and molecular tools and appears to be made of *R. virginina* and its natural hybrids with *R. carolina*. Genetic and metabolite diversity among these wild ecotypes was observed and could be of high potential for large field production and breeding programs. However, the disease resistance status in this complex is unknown. As for any new crop, increased incidence of exiting diseases and recruitment of new diseases is anticipated in the field setting as compared to the wild populations from which they derive. The preservation of natural habitats hosting the wild populations as source of genetic stocks is critical to ensure gene transfer from the wild types to the cultigens through breeding. Future works should also aim at developing mass plant production to ensure sustainable plant material supply from the elite selections.
