Article (magazine)  (2018)  Page(s) 390.  
 
Rosa chinensis var. spontanea originates from China and is endemic to the Hubei, Sichuan, Chongqing, and Guizhou provinces .... It has been overharvested by local people and pharmaceutical companies because of its medicinal usefulness and has become rare in its wild habitats. It was uncertain whether it still existed as a wild-living species because investigators failed to collect samples of this species in the field .... It has been listed as an endangered (EN) species in a recent biodiversity report ..... Fortunately, during systematic and integrative field investigations focusing on this species, we recently found several populations in the wild.....It is important to mention that little information is available about R. chinensis var. spontanea except the fact that it is a diploid plant ....and that it emits 1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene, together with methyleugenol and isomethyleugenol, as minor floral scent compounds ..., resulting from O-methytransferas genes...
In the subgenus Rosa, R. chinensis var. spontanea from section Chinenses was sister to R. lichiangensis from section Synstylae, and then clustered with another species from section Chinenses, R. odorata var. gigantean, confirming that R. sections Chinenses and Synstylae, defined in the traditional taxonomic system, shared a more recent ancestor and could be merged as one section

Article (newsletter)  (Nov 2017)  Page(s) 9.  
 
Wilson also re-introduced R. chinensis spontanea, which Augustine Henry saw first in 1884 but beyond a description in 1902 had not submitted a plant specimen. Wilson collected specimens of it fruits but seems not to have observed it in flower. Not until 1983 was it seen in flower by Mikinori Ogisu. The variable habit of this rose can display itself as a climber or as an arching, rambling shrub, with light pink, buff or cream-colored flowers, the pink darkening to strong red with age. In some specimens the plant produces only three leaflets to a leaf, in others both three and five. Its prickles are red to brown and recurved, its leaves distinctly serrate, its sepals on the inner surface dressed in silky hairs. R. chinensis spontanea appears to prefer banks of rivers and rocky slopes of shale and limestone. It blooms from March into May.

Newsletter  (Aug 2012)  Page(s) 19.  
 
[From "The History and Legacy of the China Rose", by Howard Higson, pp. 16-19]
In 1983, a Japanese botanist working in China named Mikinori Ogisu also found R. chinensis var. spontanea. His discovery occurred on a dry, westfacing slope in the Ichang Gorge of the Yangtze Kiang River, within the secondary forests of Leibo County, Hubei Province. He described a wide range of flower colors on various plants of this particular population, depending upon their elevation, which ranged between 1,560 and 1,850 meters. He noted that flower color changes from pale pink to crimson due to exposure to the elements and to pollination. At lower altitudes, flower color was seen to develop quickly to a deep crimson, while at higher elevations there appeared a slower and less noticeable color change, with both pale pink and crimson flowers occurring on the same plant. He considers a cultivated variety named R. chinensis ‘Sanguinea’ (also called the Bengal Crimson 1 and depicted by Redouté) to demonstrate similar characteristics. Over a 10-year period of exploration in Sichuan, Ogisu found 10 locations where native stands of the species occurred, including a pure white-flowered population. As seen in previously discovered populations, these flowered only once, in early to in mid-summer. Ogisu described the species to be of small to medium growth habit, with smooth, reddish wood when young, and with sparse, small, dark red prickles when mature. Leaves are sparse with three to five pointed leaflets that are reddish-brown when young. Flowers are single, five-petaled with a limp, silky texture and a loose shape after opening. He believes that, in the past, only double-flowered rose selections were cultivated in China (as was true for chrysanthemums, Rubus, Lotus, and peonies), and that only these made their way to Europe. Subsequent single-flowered varieties came about, therefore, by reverting to their natural condition, as seen in the wild.

Newsletter  (Feb 2012)  Page(s) 18.  
 
Asian species such as R. gigantea and R. chinensis spontanea bloom once.

Article (magazine)  (2011)  Page(s) 158.  
 
Table 1 The main morphological characters, distribution information, and chromosome number of varieties of R. odorata and R. chinensis, with respective names taken from Hurst's (1941) descriptions
R. chinensis var. spontanea; [Ploidy] - ; Single; Red; Native in Guihou, Hubei; Sichuan

Newsletter  (Oct 2010)  Page(s) 15.  
 
In his book, In Search of Long Lost Plants, (only in Japanese for the moment), Ogisu vividly describes the moment he happened on this elusive wildling,
In the delirium of high fever, I thought I saw something red move in the dim field of vision. Could it be ...? It was an area about 1,560 metres a.s.l. in Leipo Xian in SW Sichuan, on a dry slope facing west that I thought I saw something move. There I saw red flowers 5 to 6 centimetres acrosson the twigs of a low shrub1.5 to 2 metres high. I took a closer look and saw the open pistils sticking out of the calyx tube - the unique characteristic of roses in the Chinensis section. Rosa chinensis spontanea!
The flower buds were very pale pink - almost white - but as they opened, , the pink of their petals got darker and darker, and the stamens also changed from yellow to crimson....

Newsletter  (Oct 2009)  Page(s) 35.  
 
.... R. chinensis Spontanea had been spotted as early as 1885 but it was Dr Ogisu, at the instigation of Graham Stuart Thomas, who re-discovered it in 1983 in southwestern China and presented it to the world

Booklet  (2009)  Page(s) 28.  
 
Diploid....R. chinensis var. spontanea, heterozygous loci 43% [Provenance: Quarry Hill Botanical Garden, Glen Ellen, CA: Sichuan Province 1988.237]
R. chinensis var. spontanea, heterozygous loci 36% [Provenance: Quarry Hill Botanical Garden, Glen Ellen, CA: Sichuan Province 2001.226]

Article (magazine)  (2008)  Page(s) 5931.  
 
Among PME [phenolic methyl ether]-producing roses, R. chinensis spontanea exhibits unique scent characteristics. indeed, this very rare wild species, found only twice over a period of one century, produces large amounts of TMB [1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene] (60% of volatiles) and no DMT [3,5-dimethoxytoluene].

Article (magazine)  (2007)  Page(s) 370, fig. 1.  
 
R. chinensis var. spontanea typical ploidy 2x, 3x, 4x