Article (newspaper)  (Oct 2012)  Page(s) 2.  Includes photo(s).
 
Patricia Routley: One of the successes in our garden has been the species Rosa roxburghii plena I initially struck the rose from cuttings from the Pinjarra Heritage Rose Garden and planted it in full sun but probably too close to the karri. It survived there for a few years but when I saw it was not thriving, and indeed seemed to be growing backwards (read dying!), I struck another piece from it in 2003 and put the second plant in the garden in some far better soil. Then forgot about it. No water, no ferty, no pruning. Only an occasional glance as the years passed and I noticed a flower now and then. These days I make a point of stopping to pay homage. My little cutting has now made a very respectable bush 3m wide by 2m tall and is stretching itself out over a path - I’ll move the path! The beautifully coloured Maple is now shading it more than the rose would like, but both tree and rose are going to have to co-exist as they are equally as lovely. Forgetting about the rose for those years was the right thing to do as it does take years for R. roxburghii to start to produce its blooms. You wouldn’t really pick the bush as a rose because the leaves are so different with up to eleven roundish-to-oblong leaflets and the whole graceful drooping shrub looks like a giant maidenhair bush. Up until 1916 the bush was known as Rosa microphylla. Micro (small) phylla (leaf). If you look deep inside the bush you see the older thicker branches have gray-brown bark that flakes off leaving a whitish surface underneath. The newer branches are purple to brown. The other really different thing about this rose is that it has slightly flattened chestnut-like hips like knobbly, prickly depressed globes, so noticeable that it gained synonym names of the Burr Rose and the Chestnut Rose. Even the sepals protecting the bud, are covered with bristles. The prickles are a bit different also, occurring in straight 5mm pairs at the base of each leaf node and they point upwards. True! It is not until we get to the flower that it is evident this beautiful bush really is a rose. Very double, up to 6cm wide, a deep lilac pink paling slightly on the edges, short pedicels and borne solitary or in small clusters of 2 or 3, at the tips of the branches. The double form R. roxburghii plena was introduced from China in 1824 by William Roxburgh, director of the botanical garden in Calcutta and by 1839 it was common in Gardens in Bombay. However, it wasn’t until 1916 that the name R microphylla was dropped in favour of R. roxburghii. There is a single form called R. roxburghii normalis that had been found (long after the double form) by a Russian man Carl Maximowicz in Japan in 1862 and was pictured in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine in 1881. This single form, exactly the same, but just five petals is in the Adelaide Botanical gardens, but I am content to have the double (plena) form in my garden.

Book  (Feb 2009)  Page(s) 223.  
 
Rosa roxburghii Tratt/Rosa roxburghii plena Rehder: Description… Ce rosier fut introduit en Angleterre en 1824 par William Roxburgh, directeur du jardin botanique de Calcutta. Il provenait probablement de Chine. Comme souvent la forme double a été connue en Europe avant de retrouver dans la nature la forme originelle que l’on a alors qualifiée de ‘normalis’

Translation:
Rosa roxburghii Tratt / Rosa roxburghii plena Rehder: Description ... This rose was introduced in England in 1824 by William Roxburgh, director of the botanical garden in Calcutta. It likely came from China. As is often the double one was known in Europe before returning to the original form of nature which was then called a 'normalized'

Article (magazine)  (2009)  Page(s) 14.  
 
R. roxburghii Tratt.  Source RJBM [Réal Jardin Botanico Madrid] Chromosome Number 14

Book  (1 May 2003)  
 
Rosa roxburghii Trattinnick, Ros. Monogr. 2: 233. 1823.
缫丝花 sao si hua
Rosa microphylla Desfontaines var. glabra Regel.
Shrubs diffuse, 1–2.5 m tall. Bark gray-brown; branchlets ascending-spreading, purple-brown, terete; prickles paired at nodes, mostly straight, to 5 mm, somewhat flat, abruptly narrowing to broad base. Leaves including petiole 5–11 cm; stipules mostly adnate to petiole, free parts subulate, margin glandular-pubescent; rachis and petioles with scattered small prickles; leaflets 9–15, elliptic or oblong, rarely obovate, 1–2 × 0.6–1.2 cm, glabrous, abaxially with prominent veins, conspicuously reticulate, base broadly cuneate, margin acutely simply serrulate, apex acute or rounded-obtuse. Flowers solitary, or 2 or 3 and fasciculate apically on branches, 4–6 cm in diam.; pedicel short; bracts 2 or 3, small, margin glandular-pubescent. Hypanthium depressed-globose, densely bristly. Sepals 5, usually broadly ovate, abaxially densely prickly, adaxially tomentose, pinnately lobed, apex acuminate. Petals 5, slightly fragrant, pink to rose-purple or reddish, obovate. Carpels on projected torus at base of hypanthium; styles free, not exserted, shorter than stamens, pubescent. Hip green-red, depressed-globose, 1.5–2 cm in diam., densely prickly, with persistent, erect sepals. Fl. Mar–Jul, fr. Aug–Oct.
Mountain forests, thickets, slopes, stream sides, also cultivated; 500--1400 m. Anhui, Fujian, S Gansu, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, S Shaanxi, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Japan].
Two forms may be recognized: f. roxburghii, which has double or semi-double, reddish or pink flowers 5–6 cm in diam., and f. normalis Rehder & E. H. Wilson (in Sargent, Pl. Wilson. 2: 318. 1915), which has simple, pink flowers 4–6 cm in diam. The specific epithet was spelled “roxbourgii” in the protologue.

Book  (2001)  Page(s) 450-451.  
 
Rosa roxburghii Tratt., Rosac. Monog. 2 (1823) 233.
Rosa microphylla Roxb. ex Lindl., Ros. monog. 9 (1820) 146; Saintpierrea microphylla Germain de St. Pierre in J. de Ros. 2 (1878) 39; R. forresttii Focke in Not. Bot. Gard. Edinb. 5 (1911) 67, t. 62; R. hirtula Nakai in Bot. Mag. (Tokyo) 34 (1920) 44; Platyrhodon microphylla Hurst in Verh. V. Internat. Kongr. Vererbungswiss. Berlin (1927) 902.
Small-leaved Chinese rose; Japanese sansho-ibara.
China, Japan.
In some regions of Java cultivated, the young shoots and leaves are eaten as a vegetable ("lablab").
Ref.: Becker & Van den Brink 1, 1963; Ohwi 1965, 1067 pp.

Book  (Nov 1998)  Page(s) 16.  Includes photo(s).
 
R. roxburghi Got its nickname of Chestnut rose because its prickly buds look like a chestnut burr.

Website/Catalog  (Jun 1998)  Page(s) 52.  
 
R. Roxburghii plena A most attractive double form of R. roxburghii -- similar to an Old Rose with large, pale pink outer petals and shorter centre petals of deeper pink. (Introduced from Canton 1824).

Book  (Mar 1998)  Page(s) 11.  
 
R. roxburghii fern-like foliage, flowers with crumpled petals, green fruits with stiff bristles, and bark which flakes away, becoming white and smooth...

R. roxburghii 'Roxburghii' found in 1824, very double, remontant, deep pink flowers...

Book  (Oct 1996)  Page(s) 39.  
 
R. roxburghii plena ('Chestnut Rose') Description... fresh green, fern-like foliage, buff-coloured bark that flakes, chestnut burred hips, and the most exquisite crepe paper scalloped frills of flowers -- pale pink frills on the outside, decreasing in size and becoming deep pink in the centre...

Book  (Mar 1994)  Page(s) 90-91.  Includes photo(s).
 
Rosa roxburghii Description, vital statistics and tips