Book  (Sep 1993)  Page(s) 18.  
 
('Field Rose') The sweetly scented summer flowers make it likely that this species, not R. moschata from Persia, was the famouse 'Musk Rose' of Shakespeare, Milton and Keats.

Book  (May 1992)  Page(s) 4-5.  Includes photo(s).
 
The European wild roses include the Dog Rose, R. canina, and two similar species which are, perhaps, related to it: R. eglanteria, the Eglantine Rose or Sweet Briar, and R. villosa, the Apple Rose... R. arvensis, the Field Rose... is a natural climber... R. pimpinellifolia, until recently better known as R. spinosissima or the Scotch Rose... R. gallica... R. moschata...

Book  (May 1992)  Page(s) 3.  
 
R. arvensis was responsible for starting off those interesting ramblers, the Ayrshires...

Book  (1988)  Page(s) 134.  
 
location 120/2, R. arvensis Hudson, var. plifolia R. Keller, cream-white, single, mediums ize, solitary or cluster-flowered, late-blooming, climbing + creeping, very well-branched, medium green small matte foliage, 5-7 leaflets, red to dark red small matte-glossy rounded-oval fruit, styles connate, sepals fall off singly and early

Website/Catalog  (1985)  Page(s) 39.  
 

Rosa arvensis......Also a good climber into hedgerows. W. T.

Book  (1984)  Page(s) 142-143.  Includes photo(s).
 
Rosa arvensis/Rosa arvensis Huds./Rosa repens Scop./Rosa silvestris J.Herrm./Rosier des champs. Section des Synstylae. Europe et Turquie – cultivé depuis 1750 officiellement, mais sans doute depuis beaucoup plus longtemps. Hauteur: libre à peine 1m, appuyé 1m50. Feuilles: 7 folioles habituellement, 1 à 3,5cm de longueur, aiguës, bords grossièrement dentés.. Fleurs: 3,5cm de diamètre, solitaires ou en corymbes paniculés pauciflores; petites fleurs blanc ivoire aux étamines d’or… Fruits: rouge clair, presque 2cm de long… petits aiguillons recourbés. Ses tiges traînent, puis s’enracinent, puis se redressent plus ou moins, tout enchevêtrées... Durant leur première année, les tiges sont pourprées et à peine feuillées: elles contrastent, justement, avec les tiges plus âgées moins dénudées.

Website/Catalog  (1982)  Page(s) 31.  
 
Rosa arvensis Beautiful, single, pale creamy-white flowers. Small red heps. A vigorous ground covering rose. Very useful. F. G. Shade tolerant.  (S) 4 x 10’.

Book  (1981)  Page(s) 98-99.  
 
Rosa arvensis and its descendants This ancient rose once grew wild over the greater part of Europe, but it has played a very undistinguished role in the breeding of new roses, and it enjoyed considerably more respect in the past than it does at present.
Norman Lambert in the Rose Annual of 1931 expressed his strong conviction that it was not Rosa alba which was the 'White Rose of York' but Rosa arvensis. He had made frequent visits to Yorkshire and to Towton, the battlefield where the forces of the House of York overcame the Lancastrians, in particular. Many wild white roses still grow there, as they have done for centuries. There are also impenetrable rose thickets. It is very possible that the rose selected to symbolize the House of York was a native of the country and one found in great abundance, and that could only have been Rosa arvensis. Despite the fact that many authorities maintain that it was Rosa alba, there is, as N. Lambert says, certainly room for doubt.
1596 Shakespeare speaks, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, of the scent of the "Musk Rose". The rose experts now seem to generally agree that he was actually speaking of R. arvensis which blooms in summer and has some scent, while the Musk Rose, which was rare in Shakespeare's time, does not flower until much later.
1623 Caspar Bauhin of Basel, describes Rosa candida which must have been R. arvensis.
1762 Well established in various Botanic gardens, Hudson, in his Flora Anglica, gives it the name of R. arvensis.
1767 The Edinburgh Botanic Garden sent a man to North America to collect new and unknown plants. He brought back a strong, vigorous rose which soon attracted the attention of gardeners in Ayrshire. At first it was called the 'Orangefield Rose' but this was later changed to the 'Ayrshire Rose'. This rose was unrelated to the true Ayrshires, which came later, for, in spite of conflicting reports, it seems clear that this was a hybrid of Rosa setigera.
circa 1830 Scottish gardeners like Brown of Perth, Martin of Dundee, and Robert Austin of Glasgow began hybridizing with these roses which were given the collective name of 'Ayrshire Roses'. There were about 60 varieties in all, and all were crosses between R. arvensis and other contemporary roses, although some were just chance seedlings; not much is known about them today since very few of them still exist. They were mostly white to pink, double, with little or no scent, but the growth was strong and hardy and they were used as the climbers of their day. 'Venusta Pendula' is an old arvensis hybrid of unknown parentage which was rediscovered by W. Kordes in the Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg and re-established commercially by him.
1931 'Dusterlohe' (Kordes), probably the only modern hybrid of Arvensis ('Venusta Pendula' x 'Miss E.C. van Rossem'), rose red.

Book  (1978)  Page(s) 150.  
 
R. arvensis  Trailer  White    Summer  P6  H5 
The Field Rose; after the Dog Rose, perhaps the most common British wild rose; and it comes after it in flowering too, about ten days later. Also common in western and central Europe, it is easily recognized by its long trailing growth over the ground or low bushes, by its thin stems with some purple colour in the young bark, and by its clear white flowers. It has had several names:R. repens and R. serpem refer to its creeping habit; R. silvestris because it may be found in woods, to which the Synstylae are adapted; and R. candida for its whiteness. It has also been called the White Dog Rose, by a misapprehension of relationships, and of course the Field Rose, which is a translation of R. arvensis, and serves to prove that a variety of habitats suits it, from woods to fields. 
  Two  more claims to fame have been made for it, that it was the white rose of York, on the grounds that Yorkshire was full of it, whereas the rival claimant, R. x alba would have  been less common; and that it is the rose Shakespeare knew  as the musk-rose. A case can be made for the second claim, because the lovely lines from A Midsummer Night's Dream,  'I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows', refer to a place in the countryside embellished with wild flowers. R. arvensis is the only wild rose in Britain that can be taken for a Musk, and it is indeed the most closely related. Shakespeare's musk-rose 'quite over-canopied'  the pretty scene; which only  R. arvensis could do, being the solitary wild climbing rose in Britain; it is true that the real Musk Rose had arrived, probably by about 1540, and was to be the only climbing rose available to gardeners for a long period; but I cannot see Shakespeare mixing a cultivated plant with the natural flora of the English countryside, 'Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows.' He knew it too well. And if anyone seeks to remind me that the play was set near Athens, I shall ask if Bottom is a common name in Greece. 

Article (magazine)  (Dec 1951)  Page(s) 195.  
 
Rosa arvensis Native of Britain. Creeping growth, used to cover banks.