Book  (1981)  
 
R. incarnata Mill. R. alba var. incarnata (Mill.) Pers.; R. carnea Dum.-Cours.; R. provincialis var. incarnata (Mill.) Martyn – There has been much confusion over the name R. incarnata. As used by some pre-Linnaean botanists, it, or the plural Rosae incarnatae, meant what is now known as R. damascena, while some French botanists of the last century took Miller’s R. incarnata to be a form of R. gallica with sparsely armed branches and glandular-compound leaflets. A comparison of authentic herbarium specimens shows, however, that Miller’s R. incarnata is identical to the ‘Cuisse de Nymphe’ of French gardens. The English name for this – ‘Maiden’s Blush’ – is sometimes attributed to William Hanbury, who has a charming passage about it in his Compleat Body of Gardening (1770-1). In fact, Miller himself used it in the 1752 edition of his Dictionary.
The Maiden’s Blush differs from R. alba in the colour of the flowers, the almost unarmed stems, the more numerous leaflets (mostly seven), and the presence of numerous needle-like eglandular prickles on the flowering branchlets below the bracts. It is almost certainly the same as the R. incarnata of Parkinson and a very old rose.
Miller was apparently unacquainted with the ‘Great Maiden’s Blush’ (R. alba var. regalis Thory), which is now commoner in gardens. But it is listed in Weston’s Flora Anglicana (1775) as ‘Great Maiden’s Blush Rose’, with R. incarnata major as the Latin name.
The R. incarnata of Bot. Mag., t. 7035, is not Miller’s but a form of R. gallica.

Book  (1914)  Page(s) 333-334.  
 
Rosa polliniana Sprengel (Gallica x Arvensis)
...Wild hybrids between Rosa gallica L. and Rosa arvensis Huds. are common in France and Switzerland, and they have given rise to many forms which have been distinguished by botanists and described under specific names.....The whole subject is fully described by Crépin in his observations upon Rosa gallica L. and its hybrids.(*) Déséglise was criticized for making his Rosa Polliniana too comprehensive, and it is more than probable that exception may be taken to my referring it here to Rosa incarnata Déséglise (non Miller). This is the Rosa incarnata figured in the Botanical Magazine(+) and mistaken by Sir J. D. Hooker for Miller's Rosa incarnata which is the well-known Maiden's Blush Rose.
The drawing in this work was made from a plant collected by the Abbé Boullu at Charbonnières (Rhône) and now growing in my garden at Tresserve. He describes it in Cariot's Etudes des Fleurs as a small bush with slightly spreading branches, flowering in June and July on the ouskirts of Woods at Limouset, Dardilly, and Charbonnières.
* Bull. Soc. Bot. Belg. vol. xviii, p. 343 (Primit. Monogr. Ros. fasc. v. p. 589 (1880)) (1879).
+ Vol. cxv.t. 7035 (1889).

Magazine  (1889)  Page(s) tab 7035.  Includes photo(s).
 
Rosa Incarnata.
Native of France.
Nat. Ord. Rosacea. — Tribe Roseae.
Genus Rosa, Linn. ; (Benth. et Hook.f. Gen. Pl. vol. i. p. 625.)
ROSA incarnata ; ramulis inermibus strictis superne petiolisque glanduloso-pubescentibus, stipulis magnis ellipticis glandulosis, foliolis 3-5 subsessilibus ellipticis supra viridibus subtus pallidis glaucescentibus, nervis validis plus minusve marginibusque duplicato-serrulatis glandulosis, pedunculis solitariis paucisve calycibusque sericeo-glandulosis, calycis tubo ovoideo utrinque angustato, sepalis lanceolatis longe acuminatis tribus pinnatifidis, disco parvulo, stylis liberis hispidis, corolla majuscula laete rosea.
R. incarnata. Mill. Gard. Dict. Ed. 1, Rosa No. 28, Ed. 3, Rosa No. 19 ; Boreau Fl. Centr.Fr. Ed. 2, p. 218; Crepin in Bull. Soc. Bot. Belg. vol. xv. p. 244 ; Deseglise in Men. Soc. Acad. Maine et Loire, p. 72, et extra, p. 32 ; Fourreau Cat. PI. Cours de Rhone, p. 73.

It seems incredible that a plant growing wild in several parts of France, and which, was recognized in English gardens two hundred and forty-eight years ago, and named and described in a standard work a hundred and seventeen years ago, should have, as it were, passed entirely out of the knowledge of horticulturists and botanists till the latter half of the present century. Yet such is the history of the Rosa incarnata, of Miller, enumerated under this name in the first edition of that author's Gardener's Dictionary, published in 1731, and described in the third edition (1771) of the same work. Nor is this its earliest recognition, for Miller in his first edition (1737) cites Parkinson's Herbal published in 1640, where (p. 1019) allusion is made to "the Trachynia, our pale red rose which Lugdunensis saith the French call Rosa incarnata. but Camerarius in horto saith it is a purple rose of a deeper or blackish rose-red colour with a pale violet colour mixed therewith, &c." In Parkinson's Herbal (1656) I find "2. Rosa incarnata, the Carnation Rose," to which is added "Rosa Belgica sive vitrea." On the other hand, Miller in his first edition cites Rosa Belgica sive vitrea "as another plant, and in his third edition he describes it as having a prickly stalk." Parkinson describes R. incarnata as "very thick and double, very variable in the flower, some paler as if blasted, which cometh not casually but naturally to this Rose." The best flowers he says are "of a bright Murrey colour, near unto the velvet Rose, but nothing so dark in colour."
Miller calls it the Blush Rose (a name now usurped by R. alba), and adds that it flowers with the York and Lancaster roses, after the Damask, but before the Provences.
I can find no notice of the Rosa incarnata of Miller in any subsequent systematic botanical or horticultural work till 1857, when Boreau resuscitated it in the second edition of his Flore du Centre de la France, since which it has been recognized by all authors on the genus. There is indeed a variety of alba, Linn., called incarnata, established by Persoon, and taken up by De Candolle in the Prodromus (vol. ii. p. 622), where it is identified with the "Rose cuisse de Nymphe " of French gardeners; but R. alba has very different foliage from incarnata, and can never have been confounded with it. This, however, accounts for Steudel referring Miller's incarnata doubtfully to R. alba.
Rosa incarnata is one of the Gallicanae group of Crepin, the latest and most learned writer on the genus, and is nearest to R. gallica, of which some botanists may be supposed, to regard it as a variety. This may account in part for its being overlooked as a species, but not for the omission of the name in all descriptive works. Crepin diagnoses it by the unarmed petioles, elliptic-ovate leaflets pale and pubescent beneath with glandular doubly serrate margins, and the ovoid glandular calyx-tubes. It is a native of various widely separated districts in France, and is also found near Geneva. Lastly, Mr. Baker has referred me to the figure of the rose "Baroness Rothschild," figured in Paul's " Rose Garden," Ed. 9, p. 262, a hybrid perpetual, as perhaps nearly related to R. incarnata.
The specimen figured was kindly communicated by the Rev. Canon Ellacombe, whose collection of species of Rosa is famous, and has contributed largely to that of Kew. — J.D.H. [Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker]

Fig. 1, Fruit of the natural size; 2, achene, enlarged.

Book  (1877)  Page(s) 75.  
 
p. 69 Styles hérissés...Fleur rose...Arbrisseau...Tiges et rameaux inermes
Pétioles inermes, folioles ovales-elliptiques, pâles, pubescentes en Dessous, la c^te glanduleuse, dentées en scie, à dents surdentées, tube du calice ovoïde, fleur d'un beau rose....incarnata

p. 75 Gallicanae....B) Styles libres, hérissés ou glabres...
51. R. incarnata Miller, dict., no. 19, trad. franç., VI, p. 327; Boreau, l.c., éd. 2, no. 663, éd. 3, no. 826; Déséglise, l.c., p. 72, extr., p. 32; Fourreau, l.c., p. 75; R.laevis Boullu, in litt.
Hab. Juin, Bois. - France. Cher: bois de Marmagne! bois de Contremoret près Bourges! bois de Givráy, commune de Trony (Ripart); - Loir-et-Cher: Cheverny, Fontaines en Sologne (Boreau, flore); - Rhône: Tassin à Méginant, Marcy (Boullu), Charbonnière, Dardilly (Chabert); - Haute-Garonne: Toulouse à Colomiers (Timbal-Lagrave).- Suisse. Cant. de Génève: bois des Frères, prèse de Génève!

Magazine  (1876)  Page(s) 244.  
 
[From the article "Catalogue raisonné ou énumeration méthodique des espèces du genre Rosier, pour l'Europe, l'Asie et l'Afrique, spécialement les Rosiers de la France et de l'Angleterre" by Alfred Déséglise, pp. 176ff]

Gallicanae....B) Styles libres, hérissés ou glabres...
51. R. incarnata Miller, dict., no. 19, trad. franç., VI, p. 327; Boreau, l.c., éd. 2, no. 663, éd. 3, no. 826; Déséglise, l.c., p. 72, extr., p. 32; Fourreau, l.c., p. 75; R.laevis Boullu, in litt.
Hab. Juin, Bois. - France. Cher: bois de Marmagne! bois de Contremoret près Bourges! bois de Givráy, commune de Trony (Ripart); - Loir-et-Cher: Cheverny, Fontaines en Sologne (Boreau, flore); - Rhône: Tassin à Méginant, Marcy (Boullu), Charbonnière, Dardilly (Chabert); - Haute-Garonne: Toulouse à Colomiers (Timbal-Lagrave).- Suisse. Cant. de Génève: bois des Frères, près de Génève!

Article (magazine)  (1868)  Page(s) 373.  
 
Rosa....
R. incarnata Mill. Charbonnières (Rhône).