New Reference; Marsh, David, "An Amateurish Effort? The Foundation of the National Botanic Gardens of Burma, 1914-1922," Garden History, Vol. 43, No. 2, 2015, 196. "There is one permanent reminder of Cooper's short time n Maymyo. Charlotte [Lady Wheeler-Cuffe] had collected a climbing white cluster rose from the Kutkai plateau in the northern Shan states which Cooper thought might be 'new' but was certainly 'beautiful and curious'. She had planted it in her own garden and Cooper sent seeds gathered from it to Glasnevin and Edinburgh. Graham Stuart Thomas thought it closely related to Rosa odorata but with darker red twigs and thorns. More recently it was thought to be a naturally occurring hybrid between Rosa gigantea and Rosa laevigata and it is listed in the RHS Plantfinder as Rosa cooperi (Cooper's Burma rose)."
Thank you Stephen. Reference added. “.....sent seeds”. I am presuming that this was the only rose that Lady Wheeler-Cuffe was growing in her Burma garden.
There is no history of it having been bred. Reportedly it was grown from seed sent from Burna to Ireland, collected on Mount Victoria, in then Burma. Rosarians have conjectured that it may have come from a cross( one assumes a natural cross) of R., laevigata and R., gigantea. Kew is treating it as a variant selection of R. laevigata. I believe it will turn out to be an as yet unnamed variety or subspecies of R. laevigata.
Class: variant or hybrid of laevigata Breeding: grown from seed sent from Burma. Parentage: possibly R. laevigata X R. gigantea
