ROSA BANKSIAE Aiton var BANKSIAE
A climbing rose with stems to 15m or more, with few hooked thorns. Leaves evergreen. Leaflets 5 or 7, elliptic to lanceolate, sometimes with a curved point, short-stalked, with fine, curved teeth, glabrous or hairy at the base beneath, the rhachis sometimes with a few thorns. Stipules linear, glandular, soon falling. Pedicels slender; bracts absent. Flowers few in an umbel or corymb, white, around 3cm across, double, scented of violets. Styles not exserted from the hip. Hips usually not formed.

The first form of Rosa banksiae to be introduced from China was the double white, which was introduced to Kew by William Kerr from Canton in 1807. It was named in honour of Lady Banks, wife of Sir Joseph who was then director. This rose is rare in cultivation, but is illustrated in the Botanical Magazine, t. 1954.
A double white is also common in hedges in the Lijiang valley in China, where it is conspicuous in mid-May. The plant collector George Forrest, not prone to hyperbole unlike his contemporary Reginald Farrer, describes it as follows “can you imagine a rose mass a hundred feet or more in length, thirty feet high and twenty through, a veritable cascade of purest white backed by the most delicate green, and with a cushion of fragrance on every side.” This is not identical to the cultivated form, as it has 7, not 5 shorter, elliptical leaflets and stems with numerous recurved thorns. The single-flowered state of this form is found between Lijiang and Dali.
Rosa banksiae var. banksiae Zone 8, will survive down to –10°C
Photographed in the wild in Yunnan southern China