Article (misc)  (1871)  Page(s) 207.  
 
Rosa involuta var. smithii Baker R. involuta Smith....
A stunted errect bush, with leaflets naked when mature on the upper surface, hairy principally on the midrib beneath, and scarely at all glandular, the serration closed and sharper than in all the preceding forms [of Rosa x involuta] and but slightly compound; the flowers solitary, the peduncel and calyx-tube densely aciculate, the sepals simpl. The only British specimens I have seen well representing this variety were gathered in Arran by George Don and by Mr. James Ward near Richmond in Yorkshire.

Book  (1830)  Page(s) 104.  
 
R. involúta Sm. (prickly unexpanded Rose) prickles crowded unequal straight intermixed with setae, leaflets doubly serrated hariy, glandulose beneath, stem dwarfish....Hebrides and Western Highlands of Scotland.

Website/Catalog  (1826)  Page(s) 65.  
 
ROSA involuta.

Book  (1826)  Page(s) 707.  
 
R. à fleurs en coupe. R. involuta. Smith. Rameaux couverts d'aiguillons inégaux ; folioles pubescentes et à double dentelure ; pétales contournés -, fruit hérissé ; cité à cause des variétés doubles qu'il a produites en Angleterre et dont nous possédons quelques-unes; 1°. Lady Blush, à grandes fleurs carnées, semidoubles, très-régulières; 2°. Micrantha, à fleurs .petites, doubles, pourpre nuancé; 3°. Bicolor à pétales, rouges à l'intérieur, blanchâtres en dehors , etc.

Book  (1826)  Page(s) 501-502.  
 
Rosier à fleurs en coupe. R. involuta; Lindl. R. spinosissima; Moench. R. nivalis; Doon. Des montagnes d'Écosse. Arbuste à deux à trois pieds, touffu, d'un gris-rougeâtre; ä soies et aiguillons nombreux; ces derniers forts, droits et inégaux; feuilles exhalant une odeur de térébenthine quand on les froisse, de cinq à sept folioles concaves, ovales, aiguës ou obtuses, à double dentelure, presque opaques, velues en dessous, pétioles velues, glanduleux et soyeux; fleurs solitaires, sans bractées, rouges et blanches, à pétales roulés.

Book  (1820)  Page(s) 56-57.  
 
Rosa involuta...syn. R. involuta Smith, R. nivalis Donn.
Two or three feet high, compact, reddish gray. Branches not much divided, erect, with very strong, dense, unequal straight prickles....Flowers soliary, without bracteae, red and white.
For the discovery of this the world is indebted to Dr. Walker, who found it in the highlands of Scotland, nor does it appear to have been observed elsewhere. At least all the specimens I have seen from other quarter marked R. involuta were decidely either Sabini or its variety Doniana. From these it is not very easy to point out characters which will distinguish it in a dried state. When growing, their appearance is exceedingly dissimilar. R. involuta is a little dark bush, with involute petals and very dense prickles; its leaves usually naked or nearly so on their upper surface, and its fruit never ripening in a cultivated state. R. Sabini is, on the contrary, a tall plant from 5 to 10 feet high....

Book  (1820)  Page(s) 59-60.  
 
Rosa Sabini
R. setis raris aculeisq. inæqualibus distantibus, foliolis duplò serratis tomentosis, sepalis compositis.
R. Sabini Woods! in act. linn. 12. 188. 
R. involuta Winch! ess. geogr. 41. 
β. Doniana, setis subnullis, aculeis rectiusculis.
R. Doniana Woods! l. c. 12. 185.
Hab. in Britannia septentrionali;  β etiam in Sussexià Borrer (v. v. c. & s. sp.)

Shrub 8-10 feet high. Branches erect, stout, dark brown, armed with distant falcate prickles and a few setae. Leaves grey, distant; stipula narrow, fringed with glands; petioles downy, glandular, armed with little prickles; leaflets 5-7, oval, doubly serrate, flat, hairy on both sides, a little glandular beneath. Flowers usually solitary, sometimes in great bunches; peduncles and calya very hispid; the tube round; sepals compound. Fruit round, scarlet, hispid with setae.
By specimens from Mr. Winch I have ascertained this to be his R. involuta. It is a charming plant; and as it is by far the most interesting of our British species, it has been with peculiar propriety dedicated by Mr. Woods to our common friend Mr. Sabine.
It differs from R. involuta in being far more robust and more strongly aculeated. The peduncles are solitary or aggregate, and in the latter case furnished with bractea; the sepals also are compound. It is so precisely intermediate between this division and the next, that it might with equal reason be referred to either. As it, however, is a British plant, and moreover confessedly of the family of involuta, I have preferred placing it in this division, notwithstanding its divided sepals and somewhat thickened disk.
R. Doniana is more dwarf than the other, and has straight prickles without setae on the branchlets.
Can this be, after all, a production of R. tomentosa mollis?

Book  (1819)  Page(s) 318.  
 
Rosa pimpinellifolia.... 
Bey der Vielförmigkeit dieser Art werden ohne Zweifel auch folgende Rosen hierher gehören:
Rosa involuta, germinibus globosis pedunculis aculeatissimis, aculeis caulinis numerosissimis retiusculis, petalis involuto- clausis. Smith, Fl. Brit. III. App. In Schottland.
 

Magazine  (1818)  Page(s) 186-188.  
 
[From "A Synopsis of the British Species of Rosa", by Joseph Woods, Esq. F.L.S. Read April 16 and June 4, 1816]

6. Rosa GRACILIS.
R. ebracteata, caulibus setigeris, calycibus simplicibus, foliolis duplicato-serratis, utrinque hirsutis, aculeis majoribus falcatis.
R. villosa. Engl. Bot. ix. t. 583. (excl. Syn. et Fig. fructus.) 
Frutex 8-10-pedalis. Rami vagi, intense fusci, aculeati, setigerique ; aculei majores falcati, subbinato-stipulares; minores recti, sparsi, setas formâ referentes.et in has demum sensim transeuntes. Petioli villosi, glandulosi, aculeis parvis subfalcatis muniti. Stipulæ lineares, acuminatæ, glanduloso-serratæ, glabriusculæ, ea floribus propiores latiores, et interdum, foliis deficientibus, in bracteas parvas ovatas acuminatas immutatæ. Foliola 7 vel 9, par superius et foliolum impar ceteris majora, omnia elliptica, duplicato-serrata, utrinque hirsuta, margine glandulosa, quod interdum etiam subtus in nervo, sed nunquam, ut credo, in superficie paginæ inferioris accidit. Pedunculi 1-3, plerumque binati, setis inæqualibus obsiti, hoc qui prior evenit erecto, illo graciliore, longiore, nutante. Receptaculum globosum, nunc setis pedunculi instar munitum, nunc totus glaber. Calycis foliola triangulari-lanceolata, petala æquantia; sarissiine in his conspicitur pinnula filiformis. Flores subcyathiformes, petala obcordata, pulcherrime rubescentia, basi alba. Styli inclusi, stigmatibus hemisphæricis. Fructus globosus : maturum non vidi.

The specimen figured in English Botany was sent by Mr. Robson, probably from the vicinity of Darlington; and I have received it from the same place under the name of R. villosa. In 1808 I observed one or two plants of this species at Pooley-Bridge in Cumberland ; and again in 1814. At the latter time I likewise. gathered specimens from a plant in the neighbourhood of Keswick : but as I have neither seen nor heard of it elsewhere, I conclude it to be a rare plant. 
I can hardly have any doubt as to the correctness of the synonym I have quoted. In the Rose figured in Engl. Bot. the prickles on the stem, by their number, scattered disposition, and slenderness, appear to indicate what I have called setæ, or at least the small aculei approaching to setæ. This point established, it must belong to the setigerous tribe ; and we have only to determine between R. Doniana, R. gracilis, and R. Sabini. Unfortunately the large falcate prickles, the strongest character of R. gracilis, are wanting; but this is a circumstance which I conceive may occasionally occur in a single specimen ; while on · the other hand the size and habit of the plant, the binate peduncles, and the form of the calyx-leaves, induce me to refer it to this species rather than to either of the others, and the place of its growth strengthens this supposition. I am much more confident that the plant of Engl. Bot. is not the R. villosa of Linnæus, or that of Hudson, or even of the Flora Britannica. The description“ aculei caulini rariusculi” pointedly disagrees with the figure; and all authors unite in attributing to R. villosa “aculei sparsi;" and in this genus Linnæus, from whom the term is borrowed, opposes “ sparsi” to “ conferti," and uses it to express the comparatively small number of aculei. The terin would therefore be quite inapplicable to this plant and to the figure in Engl. Bot., supposing, as would necessarily be the case, the setæ (never before distinguished from the aculei) to be included under the same term. The figure of the fruit, in which the calyx is remarkably compound, appears to have been drawn from a different plant, probably owing to none having been sent by Mr. Robson with his specimen.
Besides the marks enumerated under R. Doniana by which these species may be distinguished, the peculiar length, slenderness, and apparent weakness of the second peduncle of R. gracilis may be mentioned. From R. Sabini it may be known by the simple leaves of the calyx.

Magazine  (1818)  Page(s) 183-185.  
 

[From "A Synopsis of the British Species of Rosa", by Joseph Woods, Esq. F.L.S. Read April 16 and June 4, 1816]
4. Rosa INVOLUTA.
R. ebracteata, caulibus setigeris, receptaculis globosis, foliolis duplicato-serratis supra glabris, aculeis confertissimis. R. involuta. Fl. Brit. 1398. Eng. Bot. xxix. t. 2068.
Frutex erectus, 2-3-pedalis. Rami stricti, fusci, aculeis confertis, strietis, reclinatis vel horizontaliter patentibus, valde inæqualibus, tandem in setas immutatis, muniti. Petioli aculeis reclinatis instructi, glandulosi, sparsim pilosi. Stipulæ lineares, glanduloso-ciliatæ, subæquales, sed interdum eæ floribus propiores ceteris aliquantulum latiores, et etiam in bracteas parvulas immutatæ. Foliola 9; par superius et foliolum impar ceteris majora, omnia elliptica, duplicato-serrata, subtus venulis hirsuta, supra glabra, nisi interdum nervo quandoque petioli instar pilis sparsis, glandulosa. Pedunculi solitarii, rarius binati, setis inæqualibus obsiti. Receptaculum globosum, atro-fuscum, setis ut pedunculus munitum. Calycis foliola triangulari-lanceolata, integerrima, petala plerumque æquantia, glandulosa, receptaculo pallidiora. Flores cyathiformes; petala obcordata, rubescentia, basi albida. Styli inclusi; stigmatibus planiusculis. Fructus globosus, setosus : maturi colorem nescio.

Scotland, principally on the western coast. Glen Lyon, Rev. J. Stuart, D.D. Isle of Arran, Mr. G. Don.
This Rose is easily distinguished from R. rubella and R. spinosissima, by the double serratures of the leaflets. From R. Doniana it is known with more difficulty; for though I have uniformly found the upper surface of the leaf without hairs in this species, with the exception already noticed in the description, and as uniformly pubescent in the other, yet I feel that it would be unwise to place an entire dependence on this character. Still, however, the expanded flower and comparatively scattered prickles of R. Doniana seem to denote an essential difference between the two plants. The root-shoots of R. Doniana are indeed very full of aculei, though less so than those of R. involuta ; and it must carefully be observed as a general rule in the comparison of these and of all other species of Rosa, that we must draw the parallel between similar parts :—for instance, in the present case we must compare the strong surculi or root-shoots of R. involuta with the surculi of R. Doniana, and the branches of the one with the branches of the other; and not conclude that there is no diffe. rence if the surculi of R. Doniana are as thorny as the weaker branches of R. involuta ; for in almost all Roses these strong shoots are decidedly more prickly than the rest of the plant.
If the distinctive character between this family of Roses and that of R. cinnamomea be drawn from the bracteæ, as I conceive must necessarily be the case, the young botanist may possibly be led by it to seek this species of Rose among the last-mentioned family; the permanence of the setæ, and their insensible gradation into aculei, which never occurs among that tribe, will serve to correct the error.