Billy - you are a dear lady. It is so nice to get thanks. Putting the references to the Australian roses on HelpMeFind was something that I could do, and I am so happy to share it. But the one to really thank is HelpMeFind for making the facility available to us all.

For once, I don't remember that Californian 'Sunny South', but I know what you mean by the "faceted look". I think this is best shown in the wonderful painting by Earnest Buckmaster.
Co-incidentally, just yesterday I had sent off my 500 words on a rose to my tiny local paper and I chose to feature 'Sunny South'. I'll share that too:

Rob and I travelled up and down the South West highway for many years and I had often noticed a tall rose bush at the old school site at Yornup. In 2000 I stopped and looked around. There were three roses. The southern one was a thorny old red hybrid tea, the middle was the tall bush, and the northern one was the rootstock rose ‘Manetti’. Later, only the tall bush struck for me.

It did not take me too many years to realise that this was the famous ‘Sunny South’ that Alister Clark had bred in Victoria in 1918. It is a distinctive rose with about 18 petals. They are light pink paling slightly in the center and they open widely to show the stamens. The squarish petals are arranged at different levels, so the end effect is of a wavy-petalled rose. It is a simple and charming flower and once seen, it is never forgotten. The other dead give-away to ‘Sunny South’ is its tall growth, up to 8 feet high and I think the original bush at Yornup is probably 10 feet. It is still growing there, blooming and waving happily at passing cars – no water, no ferty, no pruning – for at least 26 years now, for the little Yornup school, which opened in 1929 was closed in 1984 and relocated to Bridgetown in 1996 in anticipation of the construction of a heritage precinct which never eventuated. Aaagh – the irony of it all. Have a look for this old heritage rose the next time you pass. It is on the western side of the highway and just north of Yornup, opposite the hall.

The breeder Alister Clark left his records book out in the garden in later life, but for once, we actually know the parentage of ‘Sunny South’ because he wrote in the 1928 Australian Rose Annual “I have found Herr Peter Lambert’s ‘Gustav Grunerwald’ a fine seed parent and using the pollen of ‘Betty Berkeley’ on it I got ‘Sunny South’, one of the few roses in my garden that I would not like to alter in any one way”.

Alister “gave” this rose to the Rose Society of Victoria and for every rose that was sold, the profits went into the Society’s coffers. It was promoted as a hedge rose and one had to plant a lot of them to make a hedge, so the Rose Society made a mint of money from it. For me it seems too sparsely wooded to make a hedge, even closely planted. But it was very popular in its day and went all around the world.

One of the pictures here is of a painting by Earnest Buckmaster who won the 1932 Archibald Prize. I am not sure if the painting was dated but a friend saw it in the Beverley Art Gallery in the Railway Station in 2009. I would be very happy to have that painting in my house, but I will have to console myself with the actual 1918 rose.

[later edit. photo of painting removed just in case the artist objected]

How tall would you say the old Yornup 'Sunny South' is Patricia?