Article (newsletter)  (Nov 2017)  Page(s) 15.  Includes photo(s).
 
The white R. filipes rarely ornaments gardens today. Its size alone is a daunting factor. Its fragrant flowers grow in huge clustered cymes and panicles on canes able to climb over fifty feet high and 100 feet wide. The long, lanceolate leaves exhibit glands underneath..... According to Wilson, this species has “a rather local distribution” in western Sichuan though it is rather common in the dry regions.

Book  (1 May 2003)  
 
Rosa filipes Rehder & E. H. Wilson in Sargent, Pl. Wilson. 2: 311. 1915.
Shrubs climbing, 3–5 m tall, with long repent branches. Branchlets purple-brown, terete, glabrous; prickles scattered, curved, to 5 mm, stout, flat, gradually tapering to a broad base. Leaves including petiole 8–14 cm; stipules narrow, mostly adnate to petiole, free parts lanceolate, margin entire, sparsely glandular-pubescent, apex acuminate; rachis and petiole sparsely pubescent, glandular-pubescent, with scattered, small hooked prickles; leaflets 5–7, rarely 3 or 9, oblong or lanceolate, rarely obovate, 4–7 × 1.5–3 cm, abaxially subglabrous or puberulous along prominent veins, glandular punctate, adaxially glabrous, base subrounded or broadly cuneate, sometimes slightly oblique, margin simply serrate, rarely inconspicuously doubly serrate, apex acuminate. Flowers 25–35, 2–2.5 cm in diam., in compound corymb or panicle ca. 15 cm in diam.; pedicel sparsely glandular-pubescent, 2–3 cm; bracts ovate-lanceolate or lanceolate, margin glandular-pubescent, apex acuminate. Hypanthium ovoid, glandular-pubescent. Sepals 5, deciduous, ovate-lanceolate, abaxially sparsely pubescent and glandular-pubescent, adaxially densely pubescent, margin entire, apex acuminate. Petals 5, fragrant, white, obovate. Styles connate into column, exserted, pubescent. Hip deep red, subglobose, ca. 8 mm in diam.; sepals reflexed, eventually deciduous. Fl. Jun–Jul, fr. Jul–Nov.
Thickets, roadsides; 1300--2300 m. Gansu, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan.
One of us (Gu) wonders if Rosa tatsienlouensis Cardot (Notul. Syst. (Paris) 3: 264. 1916), described from Sichuan (Kangding Xian), is identical with R. filipes. Further study is required.

Article (magazine)  (2001)  Page(s) 393.  
 
R. flipes Rehd. et Wils. Ploidy 2x
Pollen fertility 70.0%
Selfed Fruit set 0%

Book  (Nov 1994)  Page(s) 212-213.  Includes photo(s).
 
R. filipes The Synstylae
Western China, introduced in 1908....The only form I have grown or seen is one secured, probably from the Roseraie de l'Häy, by E. A. Bunyard, but I have found no record of it in his writings...It makes shoots 20 feet long in a season, is about 100 feet wide...it has achieved a height of about 50 feet. the young shoots are richly tinted with brown and copper, and the leaves are light green with 5 to 7 leaflets...the corymbs of blossom may be 18 inches across, composed of a hundred or more small, cupped, creamy white flowers with yellow stamens, borne on thread-like stalks. These slender stalks give the name of 'filipes'. Small oval heps. The fragrance is equally remarkable....

Book  (Sep 1993)  Page(s) 133.  Includes photo(s).

Book  (1988)  Page(s) 150.  
 
location 125, 127/1; R. filipes Rehd. & Wils., SYNSTYLAE, western China, Iran, Kurdistan, 1908, white, single, fragrant, small, late-blooming, vigorous, climbing, 2.5-5 m, branched, few large prickles, red canes, medium green medium-large matte-glossy foliage, 7-9 leaflets, orange-red small bottle-shaped fruit, styles connate, sepals fall off early, many hips

Book  (1981)  Page(s) 90-91.  
 
Rosa filipes Rehd. & Wils.
A very large rambling shrub...shoots arching, glabrous, armed with hooked spines about ⅜ in. long. Leaves with five or seven leaflets, coppery when young; rachis and petiole glabrous, sparsely prickly and sometimes glandular. Leaflets elliptic....shallowly toothed, glabrous above, typically glabrous and slightly glandular beneath, but with some hairs on the midrib....Stipules slender, fringed with glands. Flowers fragrant, white...about 1 in. wide....Pedicels slender, glandular, not downy...Stamens...golden-yellow. Fruits... ellipsoid to globose.
Native to W. China; discovered by Wilson in N.W. Szechwan in 1908 and introduced by him...in that year and again in 1910. Plants from the second sending...were flowering....by 1919....It is stated that R. filipes is confined to the area where Wilson first found it. but there is no doubt that the roses of which Farrer sent seed in 1914/5 ...is also R. filipes....Farrer ...first met this rose in southern Kansu...that Farrer nicknamed 'Barley Bee.'...
R. filipes is now represented in the trade mainly by the fine clone 'Kiftsgate'...R. filipes is perhaps less tolerant of shade than its allies and grows slowly at first if planted under the branches of its intended host, but gains in vigour once its stems reach the sun.

Book  (1978)  Page(s) 151.  
 
R. filipes  R. helenae  R. longicuspis P6   H5   ** 
These three  are easily confused, so if we look at them side by side we  may understand them better. All three are vigorous trailers; R. filipes and R. longicuspis are capable of growing shoots as long as three tall men in a summer; R. helenae is not quite so ambitious. Their natural way of growing is to form a tangled mound, from which the long shoots explore the surrounding jungle. Sooner or later a young shoot will grow fast upwards through  the mound, and its hooked thorns will catch in branches above. Then it is away into a tree, with the object of growing through the tree and flowering in the sun. The result is a remarkable floral display, and to achieve it the shoots will grow yards and yards. This habit teaches us that if we wish to train these roses through trees, we should copy nature by letting them form a mound first, instead of tying them to the tree trunk as soon as we plant them. Usually such sites are difficult; a rose suddenly transplanted to the foot of an elm, after a year of luxury in a nursery, finds problems in securing its food and moisture; it may need a few years, and plenty of water, before it is ready to ascend. Then one can help guide it into the tree. Don't plant it next to the tree trunk, but rather under some low branches. 
  All three have small creamy white flowers with prominent yellow stamens.  The clusters of flowers borne  by R. filipes and R. longicuspis  can  be  enormous. Presumably the plants are not always certain of reaching the light, and to insure 
against failure, they are able to bear over a hundred flowers in one great cluster. R. helenae also bears many blooms, but in more compact heads. They flower in summer only; R. helenae is likely to be the first of them to bloom......
  The young shoots grow so fast, that for quite a length at their ends the stems and the leaves show colours which may be immature, but are pleasant to see; sometimes they are almost red. And the final beauty of their year is hundreds of tiny hips, of which R. helenae is the most handsome bearer. 
  It is doubtful whether true stock of R. filipes exists in Britain, unless it is the vigorous rose called `Kiftsgate', after the Gloucestershire garden in which it was found to be notable. The name  of the species is from the word filipendula, which means hanging by a thread, and is an allusion to the thin flower stalks. R. helenae was named after the wife of E. H. Wilson, a famous plant seeker, and longicuspis' means having a long pointed end; I confess I am not certain which part of the plant it refers to, but the hips are so small that the term long is only true in relation to their size. 

Website/Catalog  (1942)  Page(s) 24.  
 
Species Roses
R. Felipe—At blooming time completely covered with trusses of small white single blooms followed by similar trusses of glowing red berries. Grows eight to ten feet tall... $1.00

Book  (1917)  Page(s) 91.  
 
Rosa filipes Rehd. and Wils. A shrub producing long runners, reaching a height of 15 feet, with a few hooked prickles. The leaves are composed of five to seven serrate leaflets, and the fragrant, white flowers occur in large, loose corymbs, the individual flower being about an inch across. The scarlet, globose fruits are up to half an inch in diameter. This rose is a native of western China.