(Nov 2017)  Page(s) 18.  
 
The flowers of R. odorata var. gigantea f. erubescens, produces smaller, pale pink flowers.

(Nov 2017)  Page(s) 18.  
 
But for brief intervals in England and the U. S., by the end of 1910, Wilson had spent nearly eleven years in China. That year in the Red Basin regions of north-central Sichuan, he several times came across R. indica, the Tea rose. The first he saw were “spontaneous plants . . . in fruit” above a ravine along cliff tops in “a rocky defile.” He continued to find theses shrubs commonly on waysides, streamsides, and cliffs, but also in drier areas where trees were scarce but where abelia, privet, honeysuckle, and spirea grew and beyond Songpan above 3000 feet. These varied locations suggest the versatility and durance of Tea roses.
The flowers that Wilson identified as R. odorata var. gigantea “vary from white to yellow or pale buff or to pale pink.” In thickets and woodland edges, the plants become tall, rampant climbers, while on open plateaus they become arching bushes about six feet high. Wilson predicted in 1917 that odorata’s yellow and buff-colored forms would become the most valuable “in the evolution of yellow roses.”

(Nov 2017)  Page(s) 11.  
 
Rosa prattii, which Wilson found in 1903, is a rose he saw repeatedly during his several expeditions to China. Commonly found in thickets of western Sichuan, four to eight feet high, it grows at altitudes of 7,000 to 11,000 feet. Like so many species, “this pretty little rose” is pink and produces very small leaves. Wilson surmised it to be “a distinct variety.” First found by A. E. Pratt, it was introduced by Wilson.

(Nov 2017)  Page(s) 17-18.  Includes photo(s).
 
Wilson ....discovered the actual species, now named R. roxburghii f. normalis. He had observed it as early as 1903 and saw it again and again in his several Chinese expeditions. The bush grew abundantly along trails and roads in semi-arid riparian places of western Sichuan. Like the thickly double variety, the single species bears seed purses that imitate the husks of chestnuts. Unlike other roses, its bark is flaky, and its number of leaflets may be as many as fifteen “arranged in a brushed and combed style,” writes Harkness, “not easily forgotten.” Either form becomes a decoration in the garden.

(Nov 2017)  Page(s) 16.  
 
In dense growth of shrubbery and woodlands, along roadsides, on Mt. Omei, and on the banks of the Yangtze, Wilson in each of his Chinese expeditions to the Hupeh and eastern Sichuan provinces witnessed the common R. rubus. Though Augustine Henry had discovered it first in 1886, that of Wilson tended to vary in form. A climber from eight to 25 feet, it produces “densely hairy shoots and leaves,” fragrant white flowers, and dark scarlet hips. Called by some the “Blackberry Rose,” it is a kind of musk (R. moschata). R. mulliganii seems also closely related.

(Nov 2017)  Page(s) 9-10.  Includes photo(s).
 
The Veitch nursery, ..... excited by his finds, sponsored him on another journey to China the following year. In June 1903, on a plateau of Mr. Wa Shan at 8,500 feet, he encountered “a mass of lovely white.” Thriving among rhododendron, honeysuckle, and primroses, was R. sericea (meaning silky rose). This seems to have been the same form of the rose he came upon four months later on sacred Mt. Omei at 11,000 feet, dispersed among rhododendron, spirea, dwarf bamboo, willow, barberry, and birch. It was “common on the windswept mountain sides.” Wilson sent seeds of the plant to Veitch (and again in 1910 to the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard, having also seen it near the summit of Mt. Wan-Tiao Shan). It was named R. omeiensis f. pteracantha. Today it is called R. sericea var. pteracantha.
It is only fair to add that Wilson was not the first Westerner to discover this rose. French missionary Delavay had sent seeds of it to Maurice de Vilmorin in 1890. Incidentally, the huge wing-like, wine-red prickles are a random trait of the plant. Aside from the large prickles, the distinctive feature of this rose is its flowers, usually of only four petals. Usually is the key word here, as botanist H. L. Bean pointed out. In 1992 Miriam Wilkins in El Cerrito, California, counted seven petals on the first bloom of her R. sericea.

(Nov 2017)  Page(s) 13.  Includes photo(s).
 
R. sertata is a species Wilson met with several times, from 1901 to 1910 during his four trips to China. Pink or rose in color, its petals are emarginate (a notch in the petals). The flowers bloom in small clusters, and the reddish canes boast a few straight prickles. Upright and arching, this China rose may be an extreme form of R. webbiana found in Tibet, Afghanistan, and the Himalayas.

(Nov 2017)  Page(s) 9.  
 
In 1901 he [E. H. Wilson] re-introduced Maurice de Vilmorin’s 1895 R. setipoda, a purplish-rose species with whitish centers, distinctive for its gland-tipped bristles on long pedicels and its numerous foliaceous bracts.

(Nov 2017)  Page(s) 11-12.  Includes photo(s).
 
On Mt. Omei in 1904, Wilson discovered a species closely related to R. longicuspis (1861), namely R. sinowilsonii. With its large shiny eaves, sometimes a foot long, it produces huge self-made bouquets of large white flowers whose petals on the reverse are quite silky. It has been known to climb 45 feet high. A gigantic sample of this species thrives rampantly at my favorite English garden, Hinton Ampner. To put it mildly, the species in bloom makes a spectacular display.

(Nov 2017)  Page(s) 15.  Includes photo(s).
 
Not to be overlooked is R. soulieana, which Wilson encountered in the summer of 1908, quite abundant in arid river valleys across the China-Tibet border. There on the borderland, “many kinds of roses occure [sic],” he wrote, “but often the species are local.” R. soulieana was the most common, its fragrant sulphur-yellow flowers fading to white, its branches of grey-green foliage tall and arching. Wilson also saw it growing in profusion in the “Wokji” area of Tibet. (I think he meant the Rewoqê [also Rewochê, pronounced “re-WOE-chay”] region bordering China.) He had seen the rose also earlier in his 1904 Veitch expedition, then saw it again in August of 1910 in the valley of the Yalung River. Botanist W. J. Bean claimed it was “one of the most robust of all roses.”