Article (magazine)  (May 1965)  Page(s) vol. 52, pp. 99-113.  
 
Species of the subgenus Hesperhodos are endemic to two widely separated areas of North America: R. minutifolia to western Baja California Norte...
[recites detailed botanical description of the species]
R. minutifolia Engelm. f. minutifolia - petals pink
R. minutifolia Engelm. f. albiflora W.H.Lewis - petals white - The white petaled form is said...to be "not common" and to form large patches around Ensenada and southward.

Book  (1940)  Page(s) 451.  
 
R. stellata....Related species: R. minutifolia Engelm. Brts. pubescent, with slender brown prickles: lfts. 5-7, ovate to elliptic, 3-10 mm. long, pubescent: fls. pink or white, 2.5 cm. across. G.F.1:102. B.C.5:2996. J.L.27:456. L. Calif. Cult. 1910. Zone VII?

Article (magazine)  (1938)  Page(s) 74.  
 
The primitive form R. minutifolia Engelm. is diploid with 2x = 14. It has been placed in the genus Hesperhodos by Cockerell, a classification which is sustained by Boulenger and Hurst. This simple species has a very local distribution in south-western North America and Mexico. It is certainly related to Rosa and also to Potentilla (Boulenger, 1936 b) and indicates long-existent polyphyletic lines of descent in the group.

Book  (1937)  Page(s) 74.  
 
minutifolia Engelm (stellata-family) [ploidy] 14

Website/Catalog  (1923)  Page(s) 53.  
 
Rosa minutifolia (Engelmann). Native of California.

Book  (1912)  Page(s) 51.  Includes photo(s).
 
Rosa minutifolia Engelm.

Book  (1909)  Page(s) 60-61.  Includes photo(s).

Book  (1900)  Page(s) 351.  
 
Rosa minutifolia. (Garden and Forest 1888, 102, f.22.) Hardy. A Rose of compact much branched habit, armed with numerous straight spines, with very small leaves of 5-7 deeply-toothes leaflets, and small solitary pink or white flowers on short spurs along the branches. California.

Book  (1891)  Page(s) 331.  
 
[In Plant Records of Lower California]
Rosa minutifolia Engelm. Small-Leaved Rose Abundant in the lower part of the Upper Sonoran Zone...where it is found along dry, stony arroyos among the lower hills and up over gravelly mesas t at least 300 meters altitude....It is a peculiear little species, 1 to 1.5 meters high , in places forming dense thickets, from which almost all other shrubs are excluded. Although the regular flowering season had passed, a few plants were still blooming when our collection was made...August 2. O this rose and its limited known distribution Brandegee says: "Abundant near the coast....It extends into the interior a dozen or more miles from the Pacific slope. In some localities most of the bushes produce white flowers."

Magazine  (1891)  Page(s) 181.  
 
Rosa minutifolia. Parry's wild Mexican rose was discovered by a little party of botanists in April, 1882, on the shores of Todos Santos or All Saints bay, Baja California, about forty miles south of San Diego....Dr. C.C. Parry, who was of the party, sent specimens of the little rose to his friend, Dr. George Engelmann, who described it in the Bulletin of the Torrey botanical club...It has been figured in Garden and Forest, i. 102, accompanied with a few remarks by Prof. Sereno Watson...: 'Not only is there no other American rose like it, but it stands alone in the genus....Its compact habit, its very small and deeply toothed leaflets, and its small, solitary flowers almost sissile upon the short branchlets, together make it a very distinct species***It is a much-branched, compact shrub, armed with numerous stout, straight spines, the small leaves often fascicled [ed. note: growing in a tuft], and with numerous pink or white flowers....The globular base of the calyx is covered with short bristles....'
This rose forms low, dense thickets, two or four feet high on the dry hillsides and mesas....The flowers are scarcely an inch broad, but very bright and pretty...Although growing on dry, often sterile soil, this rose does not readily adapt itself to even a slight change of environment. Of a thousand roots, carefully planted in soil of a similar character in San Diego, only a few survived and none thrived.
From seed it is more easily grown, I believe....It blooms in April and May, and from then on, during the summer, remains in aestivation [ed. note: summer dormancy activated by heat and dryness], rooted in the sun-baked earth and apparently as dry. With the earliest rains it is again clothed with its tiny green leaves....C.R. Orcutt.