Book  (1834)  Page(s) Vol. II, pl. 2707.  Includes photo(s).
 
ROSA Dicksoni.
Dicksonian Rose.
ICOSANDRIA Polygynia.
Gen. Char. Cal. urn-shaped, fleshy, contracted at the orifice, terminating in 5 segments. Petals 5. Seeds (carpels) numerous, bristly, fixed to the inside of the calyx.
Spec. Char. "Shoots setigerous." Prickles scattered, slender, subulate. Leaflets oval, hoary, coarsely and irregularly serrated, sparingly glandulose beneath. Fruit ovate-urceolate.
Syn. Rosa Dicksoni. Lindl. in Trans, of Hort. Soc. v. 7. 224. Borr. in Hook. Brit. Fl. 224.
R. Dicksoniana. Lindl. Syn. Brit. 99.

A Native of Ireland, whence it was introduced to the garden of the eminent botanist after whom, at Mr. Sabine's instance, it has been named; Mr. James Drummond is recorded by Lindley as the discoverer. Ours are garden specimens.
It is a very distinct species, approaching in the appearance of the large, oval, downy leaflets to R. pomífera; and, as in that species, the upper part of the flower-stalk is incrassated and ripens with the fruit; but the serratures of the leaves are less regularly compound, and the glands on the underside are but few and inconspicuous, and the bush is of more humble growth, and similar in habit, in arms, and in the dark red and, in some states, cesious bark, to R. cinnamomea. The branches, however, are more divaricated, and the prickles less numerous on the root-shoots, and those on the branches less generally confined to pairs below the stipules.
Larger prickles with a small dilated base, slightly compressed and sometimes a little curved. Leaflets 5 or 7; serratures large, irregularly gashed, or occasionally simple, edged with minute glands. Stipules large, pale, their underside and edges glandulose: upper ones broader, usually coalescing, where the flowers form bunches, into large concave pointed bractese; under the solitary flowers mostly retaining 1 or 3 leaflets. Flower-stalks setose. Calyx segments glandulose on the back, slender and downy upwards with a long leafy point, simple, or with a linear-Ian. ceolate pinna or two; sometimes, as in other species, the whole segment is broader, with leafy edges and several irregular wings, indicating some degree of monstrosity. Petals deep-pink, shorter than the calyx. Styles included, hairy, with depressed pale stigmas. Fruit usually with a few strong setae, rather large, orange red, ovate with a lengthened neck, crowned with the persistent segments of the calyx.
The bush from which our specimens were taken exhibits no setae, nor have we seen them on any other specimens. For their usual existence we depend on Mr. Lindley, who has had better opportunities of studying the species, and has assigned it a place among the Cinnamomeae. Still it is possible that he has used the term setae in its less strict sense, for setaceous prickles not tipped with a gland.—W. B.

Magazine  (1830)  Page(s) 224-226.  
 
Report upon the New or Rare Plants which flowered in the Garden of the Horticultural Society at Chiswick, between March, 1825, and March, 1826. Part II. Hardy Plants. By Mr. John Lindley, F.L.S. &c. Assistant Secretary.
Read September 4th and 18th, 1827.

Rosa Dicksoni. R. (Cinnamomea) ramis flexuosis aculeis raris gracilibus sparsis armatis, foliolis complicatis grosse duplicato-serratis inaequalibus, stipulis petiolis sepalisque glandulosis sequalibus, fructu mido.

Amongst the multitude of Roses that have been distinguished by botanists of almost every nation of Europe, it is scarcely credible, that in our own country, there should still exist a species, which even the most sceptical of those who have studied the genus are ready to admit as a distinct form : yet such is the fact with the plant now about to be described. It was sent to the Society in 1824 by Mr. James Drummond, Curator of the Botanic Garden, Cork, by whom it was discovered.With other British species it has so little in common, that there is not one with which it is necessary to compare it. Of the Roses not found wild in these islands there are two, namely, R. cinnamomea and R. villosa of Linnaeus, each the representative of a particular group of species, to which it is almost equally allied ; to the former however in a greater degree than to the latter. With R. cinnamomea it agrees in the colour of its wood, in the form of its seta?, in the colour and general appearance of its foliage, in the form of the tube of the calyx, and in the smoothness and figure of the fruit; but it disagrees with it in its glandular regular sepals, more robust habit, and glandular petioles and stipules. To R. villosa it approaches in the form and serratures of the leaves, in the glandular surface of the sepals, and very much in its general appearance ; but it recedes from that species in not having any tendency to produce spines on the fruit, in its uniformly regular equal sepals, in the texture and direction of the leaflets ; and finally, in the total absence of that peculiar smell of turpentine which pervades the whole of the division of Villosae Roses.
At the suggestion of Mr. Sabine it has received its name in record of the merits of the late Mr. James Dickson, a Vice President of this Society, and an indefatigable investigator of British Botany.
The following description may possibly appear tedious; but by those who are acquainted with the difficulty of distinguishing species in this most intricate genus, it will not be found more copious than is necessary. Bush, with the habit and general appearance of an upright growing R. cinnamomea. Young shoots light green, very slightly tinged with brown, furnished with a few scattered, slightly falcate, somewhat unequal, slender prickles. Old shoots flexuose, dark purplish brown, covered all over with a light glaucous bloom, with a very few scattered, straight, slender prickles ; sometimes unarmed. Leaves large, grey, opaque; stipules large, broad, apiculate and slightly serrate at the end, downy, ciliated with fine glands, which exist also at the back near the edges ; petioles downy, unarmed, with a few glands on the upper surface; leaflets oval, complicate, coarsely and doubly serrated, downy on both sides, and having a very few minute glands beneath; there is no smell of turpentine ; terminal leaflet much larger than the lower leafllets. Flowers in 5-flowered cymes. Bracteae downy, glandular at the edge and back, the lowermost usually with a long terminal leaflet as long as the tube of the calyx. Peduncle setose. Tube of the calyx ovate, glaucous, naked, or rarely with a few setae ; sepals setose and glandular at the back, long, narrow, all nearly equal, with a long linear-lanceolate leafy serrated end. Flowers dark red, middle sized, appearing in June. Petals entire, emarginate, apiculate, much shorter than the sepals. Stigmas in a depressed head, hairy. Fruit red, unarmed.