Article (newspaper)  (Mar 2015)  Page(s) 2.  Includes photo(s).
 
Patricia Routley: There is an old gallica-like rose in my garden that came in under four different “study names”. It generated many questions in my mind and I have almost got them sorted. The first bush came in 2003 from Rose Marsh. She had rescued it from a Muradup property and thought it may be ‘Anais Segales’. The second rose came in 2004 under the study name of “Mrs. Gibb’s Gallica”. Number three drifted in in 2009 and was a founding called “Horner’s Rose”. And in 2010 after the most stunning photo came into my email box, the fourth version “Bron’s Fenceline Mauve” had to be requisitioned. Sometime after that, the penny began to drop that all roses just might be the same. These lurkers from the past only flower in spring and one has only one chance to compare them. One thing which helped was the distinctive and pronounced resinous feel and smell from the glands on the pedicel. The foliage is matt, a very dark green, deeply veined, obovate or orbicular and coarse looking. The much lighter reverse is covered with downy hairs. The canes have a multitude of thorns like little blunt needles, with larger thorns down below. It flowers in clusters and the 5.5cm very double and flat bloom has been described as a rich dark lake, changing to lilac; a vinous red or deep purple with some white striping, and paling at the edges. The rose really looks better at a distance, rather than close up, as the blooms age at a different rate and there are always untidy petals. The bush is almost a rambler and sets round red hips. My studies have led me to believe it is Russelliana pre-1826, but I have had to wade through a few distracting synonyms: “Old Spanish Rose” - This has turned out to be someone else’s “study name” from 1958. “Souvenir de la Bataille de Marengo” - The rose had been renamed by Nancy Lindsay, she whose writings were masterpieces of embroidery and exaggeration. Scarlet Grevillea - ‘Russelliana’ is certainly not scarlet, so I feel that this name was a simple comparison between our darker rose and the lighter R. multiflora platyphylla (syn: Grevillea). Cottage Rose or Russell’s Cottage Rose - This may or may not be the same as the purple ‘Russelliana’. There has also been a R. sempervirens Russelliana which in one reference, had the letters y [?yellow] and w [?white]. The jury is still out on this one. That leaves the name of Russelliana. It seems this 1826 rose was named after John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford 1766 –1839, amateur botanist and collector of plants. It is not known what the parentage was, but R. setigera, R. rugosa, R. multiflora or a gallica rose have been put forward. One puzzling thing is that I did not find any evidence of ‘Russelliana’, or its other synonyms, coming into Australia, but Trevor Nottle [Australian Rose Annual 1988 p83] presumed that Sir William Macarthur at Camden Park would have had this rose, among others “which are still being found in very old gardens and cemeteries”. Perhaps it snuck in under cover as an understock?

Newsletter  (Aug 2012)  Page(s) 6.  
 
Latest research shows that this is not the rose we think it is. Professor Anne Bruneau at the Université de Montéal has demonstrated by comparative DNA analysis that the rose sold as ‘Himmelsauge’ is genetically identical to ‘Russeliana’

Book  (2003)  Page(s) 96.  
 
'Russelliana'

Book  (Apr 1999)  Page(s) 350.  
 
Russelliana ('Russell's Cottage Rose', 'Scarlet Grevillia', 'Souvenir de la Bataille de Marengo') Multiflora. Breeder unknown, pre-1844. Rose, changing to lilac... Deep carmine red... Violet red... Flowers rich dark lake, graudally changing to lilac... the cluster presents a curious diversity of hue

Website/Catalog  (Jun 1998)  Page(s) 67.  Includes photo(s).

Article (newsletter)  (1997)  Page(s) 40.  
 
(before 1840) believed to be a hybrid between forms of Rosa multiflora and R. setigera. The flowers are like Gallicas, only smaller in size: starting off cherry-red and becoming purplish as they age … very double… grows slowly but can within three-five years reach 12 feet… hardy.

Book  (1997)  Page(s) 147.  
 
'Souvenir de la Bataille de Marengo' which turned out to be 'Russeliana' or ' Scarlet Grevillea', a R. multiflora hybrid.

Book  (Nov 1994)  Page(s) 233.  
 
'Russeliana'. 1840. An old rose which is generally classed with Rosa multiflora varieties, but possibly it is more nearly related to R. setigera or R. rugosa. It was variously known as ‘Russel’s Cottage Rose’, ‘Scarlet Grevillea’, ‘Old Spanish Rose’. and more recently ‘Souvenir de la Bataille de Marengo’ has been added to this list of synonyms. Its name ‘Scarlet Grevillea’ points to its having perhaps been brought from the Far East by Sir Charles Greville (together with R. multiflora ‘Platyphylla’), and I suppose by comparison with that pale rose its intense colouring might in those days be called ‘scarlet’. In these days it certainly would not, being of intense cerise-crimson flushed crimson-purple, fading to magenta; flowers very double, small, in clusters. Dark green, obovate leaves. Stems densely covered with small prickles. A hardy, floriferous rose making a good colour effect at midsummer, but rather coarse. Will reach to 20 feet and appears to be imperturbably hardy. Old rose scent. Possibly related to ‘de la Grifferaie’, a shrub rose frequently used as an understock.

Book  (1994)  Page(s) 43.  Includes photo(s).
 
….Most nineteenth-century rosarians, including William Paul, Thomas Rivers, and Robert Buist, classified ‘Russell’s Cottage Rose’ as a multiflora. Nevertheless, William Prince, of Prince’s Nursery in Flushing, New York, wrote in 1846 that it was not a multiflora hybrid but, rather, ‘Pallagi panaché’, a French variety of hybrid China that he had imported from France many years earlier. Prince claimed that the British had deceived the public by changing the name from ‘Pallagi panaché’ to ‘Russelliana Rose’ and marketing it as a new variety.
[Note 29. Prince, Prince’s Manual of Roses, 91]

Book  (Apr 1993)  Page(s) 528.  
 
Russelliana Hybrid Multiflora, magenta-crimson fading to mauve, ('Old Spanish Rose'; 'Russell's Cottage Rose'; 'Scarlet Grevillea'; 'Souv. de la Bataille de Marengo'); Prior to 1873. Description.