Magazine  (Jun 2020)  Page(s) 23. Vol 42, No. 2.  Includes photo(s).
 
Margaret Furness.  A Monster in our Midst - the  Lijiang Road Climber
Hedges along the road from Dali to Lijiang in China are brightened by a pink climber in spring. It has featured in our Journal before, including on the front cover of the spring 2016 issue, but we didn’t know what we were dealing with.
Bob Cherry and Neil Mitchell included it among roses they brought (via proper quarantine) to Australia in 1992. Gianlupo Osti gave it to Walter Branchi, as Lijiang Rose, in 1995. Subsequently Roger Phillips stated that he “wanted to be photographed discovering this rose”, for the film and book The Quest for the Rose. He thought it one of the most exciting finds of that trip. So who discovered it? The people living along the Lijiang Road, of course. Long ago.
It has acquired some inconsistencies. The form we have has pink stamens. It is described elsewhere as having yellow stamens, and Roger’s Roses’ website (now gone) referred to two slightly different clones. At 122km, the road is long enough for some variability. Helpmefind lists it as a hybrid gigantea. Dr Wang Guoliang identified it as R. odorata var. erubescens, though it’s uncertain whether this is the same as the rose we have. Viru and Girija Viraraghavan in India say that theirs has a second, lighter flush in autumn.
At Renmark, in our Tea-Noisette-China Collection, it starts flowering early, with a peak at the beginning of October. The flowers are semi-double, pink with slightly darker petal reverses, and are said to be moderately scented of apricot/peach/tea. The large yellow-green hips have mostly fallen by mid-February. It grows from cuttings, and doesn’t sucker......
When I contacted Bob Cherry recently, to ask if a previous HRIA Journal was correct in saying he’d brought back a big single red China rose (no), he mentioned that he’d removed his Lijiang Rd Climber when it reached 18m (60’). Whoops. Perhaps we can’t afford to keep it on the climber fence at Renmark.
It would be a pity to lose it though; does any public garden have a tall tree the gardeners would be willing to climb it up? A huge pink pillar to welcome spring.
 

Book  (2017)  Page(s) 110.  Includes photo(s).
 
Pat Toolan,  WFRS Regional Tour - Beijing
....it was here we saw a small specimen of the ‘Lijiang Road Climber’ for the first time.....

Newsletter  (2016)  Page(s) 17. Vol 27, no. 3.  Includes photo(s).
 
Nimet Monasterly-Gilbert. I cannot properly describe the elation of many when confronted with Rosa odorata var. gigantea growing along the fence of the Lijiang Alpine Botanical Garden. Was it the same as the one described in the Philips and Rix book? Ecstasy! We took a flurry of pictures before we hiked past the seed collection house into the greenhouse and, despite the deteriorating weather, across a field and up a steep slope to view “our baby” rambling between bamboos.

Photo caption: Rosa odorata var. gigantea growing along the fence at the Lijiang Alpine Botanic Gardens.

Book  (2011)  Page(s) 20.  Includes photo(s).
 
Helga Brichet. Rediscovering Three Chinese Roses.
Rix and Phillips....first spotted the "Lijiang Road Climber" around a corner of the mountain pass between Dali and Lijiang, and later found it growing in numerous other hedges and gardens in the area. The rose was a bright pink Tea China, very closely related to R. gigantea, not fully double, with bright yellow stamens and silky petals that faded towards the center. the long, pointed buds were also a bright, strong pink. Understandably their excitement was high, and numerous cuttings were taken and carefully stored away. These unfortunately were to come to a bad end, for the authors at the end of their voyage returned to Europe via the United States. Fearing that the long journey would endanger the survival of the precious cuttings, they were left with a nursery in that country and never heard of again. All was not lost, however, as we shall later see......
In 1997 in Italy a group of amateur rose lovers led by Vittorio Ducrot and nurseryman Walter Branchi decided to emulate the Rix and Phillips expedition in Yunnan. Vittorio and Isabella Ducrot recount the story in A Garden for Roses, a book privately published in 2001. Upon arrival in Lijiang, the Italians visited the Black Dragon Park and were delighted to see a very large example of "Lijiang Road Climber".....They were not so lucky with the propagation of "Lijiang Road Climber", but were saved from bitter disappointment by the generosity of a friend, Gian Lupo Osti. A year prior to the Ducrot expedition, Osti had visited the same area in search of peonies and had noticed the beautiful rose. He had taken cuttings, and these had set root in his garden north of Rome.
Some years ago in the spring, Martyn Rix came from England to spend a few days at my home in Umbria. We spent a particularly memorable day botanizing in the Apennine Hills along the road that leads to Norcia, and further up to Castelluccio on the edge of the great crater. Then I took him to the rose nursery that was at the time owned by Walter Branchi. There, looking around Martyn suddenly exclaimed "But that's my rose!" And indeed it was "Lijiang Road Climber", the rose he had lost on the way home from Yunnan. Thus the circle was closed, and Martyn took a plant of "his" rose back to England.

Magazine  (2009)  Page(s) 46. Vol 31, No. 2.  
 
Pat Toolan. A Trip to Ruston Roses.
Here we saw so many examples of well grown young plants including.... the Lijiang Road Climber which was brought in by a NSW plants-person was scary. Supports of some sort need to be erected before too long....

Book  (2007)  
 
Lijiang Rose Hybrid gigantea, medium pink. Includes description.

Article (magazine)  (2007)  Page(s) 404.  
 
Table 1. Comparison of key volatile components in representative cultivated Chinese roses and species. [adsorption volume by Solid Phase Microextraction (peak area, x10')]
DMMB: 1,3-dimethoxy-5-methylbenzene
TMB: 1,3,5-trimehoxybenzene

'Lijang Road Climber'
Dihydro-beta-ionone 0.18
Beta-ionone 0.40
DMMB 1.10
TMB 0.22

Book  (2001)  Page(s) 60, 61(photo).  
 
R. gigantea "Rosea"
Regalataci da Gianlupo Osti, il quale la portò in Italia da Lijiang, Yunnan, Cina Occidentale sotto forma di talea. E` la rosa pubblicata da Phillips e Rix in "The quest for the Rose" con il nome "Lijiang Rose". In un anno é salita a 4 metri. Fiori grandi, semidoppi, a campana rosa sfumato. Profuma.

Translation:
R. gigantea "Rosea"
Given to us by Gianlupo Osti, who brought it to Italy from Lijiang, Yunnan, Western China in the form of a cutting. It is the rose published by Phillips and Rix in "The quest for the Rose" with the name "Lijiang Rose". In one year it has risen to 4 meters. Large, semi-double, bell-shaped flowers, shaded pink. Fragrant.

Book  (1993)  Page(s) 48.  Includes photo(s).
 
We started by getting stuck in the most awful traffic jam. The road on the top of a pass between Dali and Lijiang was being mended; a truck had broken down and behind it were about 50 more trucks all stuck across the road, which was only one lane wide. Martyn and I walked on about two miles ahead, botanizing the while and trying to collect rose hips and so on, and suddenly came round a bend and looked down into a valley. Behind some small trees we could see a bright pink rose. We ran down the road to it in high excitement and it was, indeed, a Tea China Rose. It looked very closely related to Rosa gigantea but was a really strong pink, double but not fully double, with bright yellow stamens in the centre. The petals faded slightly towards the centre. The long, pointed buds were also a bright, strong pink.

Caption: The Lijiang Road Climber. this was certainly one of our most exciting finds in China, growing in a sort of hedge with the white, single Lady Banks' Rose. An extremely free-flowering, pink, scented, loosely double Climber, it was quite common on the way up through the mountains to Lijiang in Yunnan. The nearest named rose to it in cultivation in the west is 'Belle Portugaise'.