Rosa arvensis Willd. var. flore pleno

Rosa arvensis flore pleno is most likely a double, so-called Ayrshire form of the ‘Field Rose’, although from the information provided it is not possible to identify it further.  ‘Branches four or five yards long when led over a trellis, and therefore well suited for covering arbours, smooth, but armed here and there with hooked prickles.  Leaves generally consisting of five, sometimes only three, very rarely seven leaflets, which are ovate, acute, sharply serrate, the terminal one larger than the rest: petiole armed with a few curved prickles, otherwise smooth.  Stipules semisagittate conjoined.  Flowers in terminal corymbs.  Peduncles covered with glandular hairs, with two or three lanceolate, entire, pellucid bractes at the base of each.  Germen oval, smooth; segments of the calyx entire, awned, a little hairy.  Petals white, obcordate.  In these characters we cannot find any thing to distinguish this plant from Rosa arvensis; the extraordinary length of the branches being probably solely owing to culture.  It has been known some years in our Nurseries, under the name of the Ayrshire Rose, but upon what grounds it has been so called is difficult to say, for upon the strictest enquiry, as we are informed by Sir Joseph Banks, no Rose of the kind could be heard of there or in any part of Scotland.’  [BM t.2054/1819].  The double field rose is probably very similar to Rosa arvensis ‘Splendens’, still available today.  This is a vigorous climber with dark green leaves and purple-red buds opening to loosely-formed, cupped, double, myrrh-scented, pale creamy-pink flowers in summer.