'R. chinensis spontanea' rose photos

Gardeners' Chronicle 31(809): 438-439 (June 28, 1902) WILD CHINESE ROSES Augustine Henry THE WILD FORM OF ROSA INDICA, L., was established by Linnaeus as a species, and the specimen in his herbarium belongs to this species. The plant is not admitted by Hooker as a native of India, and it is excluded from the flora of Japan by Matsumura. It was introduced into cultivation in England by Sir Joseph Banks in 1789. The only wild specimens known are those collected by me in the glens near Ichang, in Central China; and I have no reason to doubt that they are truly wild. The illustration (fig. 170) now given is taken from my No. 1151, which shows the plant in flower. The fruit shown is from No. 4181. No. 1151 was collected in the San-yu-tung glen, off the Ichang gorge, in two places, where the Rose occurred as a large shrub climbing over rocks, with single flowers, generally deep red, but occasionally pink in colour; these specimens were collected in April. No. 4131 in fruit was collected on July 31 in a wild glen also on the Ichang gorge, but on the opposite side of the river, many miles distant to the south-west. My note taken at the time, says that it resembled the Banksia Rose in habit, i.e., it was a large, straggling climber on the side of the ravine. This specimen shows only trifoliolate leaves, and these are smaller than those of the flowering specimens, which have both three and five leaflets; otherwise the leaves are identical. The wild form may be described as a large climbing shrub, armed with brown, scattered, hooked prickles. The leaves have either three or five leaflets, which are ovate or elliptic, acuminate, serrate; they are dark green above, and glaucous underneath. The stipules are narrow, adnate almost to the top, finely-toothed on the edge, and ending in a subulate point. The flowers are solitary, thus differing from many cultivated forms. There is a specimen, No. 96, in the Kew Herbarium, collected by Oldham in Formosa, which has single flowers; but I doubt this being a wild plant. The leaves are very different in aspect from the Ichang plant; they are not glaucous underneath. Rose gigantea, Collett, which was discovered in the Burmese Shan States, was also found by me in Yunnan. It is close to Rosa indica in technical characters; but it may be readily distinguished by the much larger flowers, which are always white. The sepals have not the curious appendages that occur in Rosa indica. In Rosa gigantea the leaves are often seven-foliolate, and the fruit is much larger than in the other species.