Magazine  (1998)  Page(s) 43. Vol 20, No. 4.  
 
Gillian Batchen, Sydney. ‘Agnes Smith’ is another “found” rose from Rookwood that does very well in gardens. It amazes me that such a healthy, tough rose that flowers profusely with beautiful pink blooms flushed a darker pink on the edges, should have disappeared from nurseries. You can understand that sickly roses or ones that don’t perform would disappear from cultivation, but this rose has everything that is desirable in a rose, and yet no-one can identify it though many have tried.

Article (misc)  (1993)  Page(s) 184-5.  
 
From "Rookwood Cemetery: Some Observations on the state of the Old Fashioned Roses in the area taken over the last 9 or 10 years." by Esmond Jones.
Over on the Lidcombe side there is a magnificent pink tea rose that is known as "Agnes Smith" because of the name on the headstone. I have sent coloured slides of this rose to various people overseas and some are of the opinion that the rose is La Sylphide.

Magazine  (1992)  Page(s) 20. Vol 14, No. 3.  
 
Stephanie Murphy. In the old Independent Section at Rookwood Cemetery there is a beautiful Tea rose growing on the grave of Agnes Smith. The headstone reads:
AGNES Wife of Archibald Smith. Born at Whitburn Scotland. Died 19th July 1893. Aged 56 Years. Also
ARCHIBALD SMITH Husband of the Above. Died 23rd June 1901. Aged 66 Years
The plant is multi-stemmed, 4-5ft tall and as much across forming a well-branched plant, rather densely covered with healthy mid-green leaves almost to ground level. The flowers are produced abundantly from Spring to early Winter, sometimes singly on short angular branches and sometimes on stronger straight shoots, 2ft long in a cyme with 8 flowers. The flowers are semi-double, opening wide to show many petaloides and golden stamens in the centre. The colour is pink, not flat and uniform but subtly mottled with off-white in the inner petals set off by a deeper clearer pink in the guard and outer petals. The perfume of Agnes Smith I can only describe as light and sweet but in no way remarkable. It is certainly not as distinctive as other Tea roses like M.Tillier with its fruity overtones, or Mrs B R Cant which to me seems almost mentholated or my favourite Duchess de Brabant whose perfume I have seen described as 'spicy and peppery' but for me has a sweetness blended with the lightly tarry scent of a packet of tea. The identity of Agnes Smith is a mystery. Such an outstanding plant naturally excites a lot of curiosity and the idea that it may be Hume's Blush Tea-scented China has been suggested, so let's look at that......... [more to be read here]

Agnes Smith is only semi-double and the colour is a far more emphatic pink than could ever be called blush. Its young wood is not purple-red as Arthur Wyatt's plants were and it does not smell like Earl Grey tea as the rose in South Africa does. We know more about the origins of the woman Agnes Smith - she came from Whitburn, Scotland - than we do about the beautiful rose growing on her grave.

Magazine  (Dec 1988)  Page(s) 14. Vol 10, No. 4.  
 
Iris King, NSW Three roses nominated for propagation and reintroduction:
Agnes Smith - a superlative pink tea, always in flower. Given family permission, it could become known officially as Agnes Smith, the name it now goes by.

Magazine  (Mar 1988)  Page(s) 26. Vol 10, No. 1.  
 
Ruth Hoskins. W.A. "Agnes Smith" likes to grow doesn’t it? All the cuttings grew and I have now handed it out to other officianados with comments to do their own detective work.