Booklet  (2022)  Page(s) 8-9.  Includes photo(s).
 
"Agnes Smith"

Website/Catalog  (21 May 2020)  
 
Agnes B Smith (Aus)  Discovered by Robert Peace in 1985 on an old grave in the Rockwood cemetery, Australia, this is another of the contenders for ‘Humes blush’. Mottled pink semi double flowers. Mid green foliage eventually becoming a shrub of around 1.5 metres

Magazine  (Jun 2019)  Page(s) 20. Vol 41, No. 2.  Includes photo(s).
 
Margaret Furness.  Mystery Teas in Australia.
“Agnes Smith”, China-Tea, collected Rookwood. Syn. "Blakiston Pink Tea". Also sold as Irène Watts and as Odorata.
Bloom form and colour vary with the seasons. Can be whitish with the palest pink blush, or can be quite strongly pink. The bud colour can be deceptive - often a much deeper shade of pink than the emerging bloom. The warm weather blooms are looser, with fewer petals while the cool weather blooms are much fuller.  Prickles straight or curved, can be paired. Low-medium growth. Can get mildew. One possibility for Hume’s Blush Tea-scented China (see Lilia Weatherly’s article in the autumn Journal of 2011).  The leaf colour in the photo below at Rookwood is incorrect.

Magazine  (Mar 2019)  Page(s) 51. Vol 41, No. 1.  
 
Margaret Furness.  Tea, Noisette and China Mislabels in Australia.
Poly-Teas and Chinas.
Rookwood “Agnes Smith” is also sold as Irène Watts.

Magazine  (2015)  Page(s) 28. Vol 37. No. 3.  
 
Hillary Merrifield, Billy West and Lynne Chapman. Renmark Repository April 2015.
Recorded on previous visits. Probably identities are given in brackets.
"Blakiston Pink Tea" ("Agnes Smith").

Magazine  (2009)  Page(s) 5. Vol 31, No. 3.  
 
Margaret Furness.  Update on the Tea-Noisette China Collection at Ruston's.
Some foundlings are looking very like others, eg "Agnes Smith", "Blakiston Pink Tea" and one of the roses sold as 'Irene Watts'. 
 

Magazine  (2005)  Page(s) 21. Vol 27, No. 1.  
 
p21 Esmond Jones. Teas like “Agnes Smith” which gives very good value for the twelve months with a surprisingly endless number of flowers which have a good fragrance, and not to mention the superb coppery red colours in its new growth.

p59. Esmond Jones. 10th February, after another inch of rain; a cool, overcast day. These are some of the roses that I have flowering now or are about to flower ....and – I am eternally grateful for Barbara May for bringing this superb rose into my collection - “Agnes Smith” which is covered in buds.

Magazine  (2003)  
 
Heritage Roses in Australia Inc. Seventh National Conference, 2003. Hay, NSW. Proceedings.
p22 Barbara May and Jane Zammit. James Watson Family. Here we happily combine 3 of these roses with one of the most beautiful pieces of architecture at Rookwood. The only bright light in the midst of a disastrous propagating season last year was to manage to produce the first batch of “James Watson 1” – so he has now been saved.

Magazine  (2001)  Page(s) 37. Vol 23, No. 2.  
 
Lilia Weatherly: Hume's Blush Tea Scented China.
....In 1985, Robert Peace, from Victoria, was shown a plant on the grave of Agnes Smith (1910) in Rookwood Cemetery, NSW. Rookwood is the largest cemetery in the Southern Hemisphere. Hume's Blush was often used as a rootstock for tea Roses in the early days so it is quite likely to have survived in this situation. The cuttings Robert took have carried the study name “Agnes Smith” for several years. I have had a plant since 1994, and one of the photographs I have of “Agnes Smith” in my garden is so like Redoute's painting, that it looks as though it could have been used by Redoute when he painted his picture of Rosa Indica Fragrans! It is uncannily posed in the same position. When shown “Agnes Smith”, Roger Phillips thought it looked similar to the Rosa odorata he had seen in China. I am not the only person to be convinced that this is very likely to be the true Hume's Blush Tea Scented China. One nursery has already listed it as such........ Since I wrote this article about four years ago, I have discussed Hume’s Blush and “Agnes Smith” with lots of people. At the Rose Week conference in 1999, I met Elizabeth Carswell from Bermuda, who has since visited us. She thinks that their “Bermuda Spice” may be Hume’s Blush. She went off with a picture of “Agnes Smith” and will no doubt be comparing them. At Rose Week, we also met Akira Ogawa from the Japanese Rose Society. He too was interested in Hume’s Blush and went away with a picture of “Agnes Smith”.

Book  (2000)  Page(s) 96.  
 
Richard Walsh (from notes supplied by Barbara May). Rookwood - Cemetery and Rose Garden:
....Others were named conveniently for the nearest head stone. One such,"Agnes Smith" is thought by some to be 'Hume's Blush Tea Scented China', one of the legendary 4 stud chinas and a parent of most of the tea roses.