Magazine  (Jun 2020)  Page(s) 10. Vol 42, No. 2.  Includes photo(s).
 
“Beryl Turner’s Tiny White”, collected Pemberton, WA. 1m.

Article (newspaper)  (Apr 2014)  Page(s) 2.  Includes photo(s).
 
Patricia Routley: In 1996 I had just joined Heritage Roses in Australia and their quarterly journal urged us to save old roses. I took it all on board and went searching. In those days if I saw a bit of colour in an old garden, I would just go and knock on the door. Every gardener wants to talk about their plants and I made many friends this way and gathered in many old roses. One gardener I met was Mrs. Beryl Turner in Pemberton who had a few rambling roses on her front fence which were enticing. That day she shared many plants with me and I have a vivid memory of that kind lady pulling up a sucker of the prickly rugosa rose ‘Scabrosa’ with her bare hands and wincing in the process. Another cutting she gave me was a white miniature rose that her sister had passed on to her years ago. All the cuttings struck and I put five plants in a tiny bed by the orchard gate and surrounded them with prostrate rosemary. Not knowing what it was, I gave it the temporary study name of “Beryl Turner’s Tiny White”. This sweet little rose blooms in panicles, each stem branching out and bearing three or more buds. It sometimes seems that each flowering cane carries up to 50 one-inch tiny blooms and it would make a superb spring bride’s bouquet. The 30 petalled blooms show a few tiny stamens just visible in the center and the petals almost seem to be square-cut around the outside edge. The buds are snowy white, perhaps with a hint of lemon in the white – I have never seen any pink in them. The green upright canes are smooth but there are infrastipular thorns. In time, each of my bushes has made a dense thicket of green canes about 70 cm high and they set many oval hips that mature to orange. The leaves are multiflora-like with fimbriated stipules. I have seen this little white rose growing elsewhere in Western Australia under the name ‘Anna Marie de Montravel’, 1879. Phillip Robinson, visiting here from the U.S. in 2006 thought that it was perhaps not that rose. To him, it seemed the same as an American foundling “Lindee” or maybe ‘Snowflake’ 1900. I have discounted this last rose as ‘Snowflake’ had pink buds and was very low growing (7 inches was quoted) in a 1900 reference.
There are two white polyantha roses that it may be:
‘Pacquerette’ 1872, which was the first polyantha rose to be bred. This bloom was said to be 1 inch (25mm), which matches, but in an old 1889 illustration there were some pretty fearsome prickles, quite foliated sepals and an imbricated bloom that seems to have more petals as well. Or possibly ‘Anne Marie de Montravel’ 1879, but this irregularly formed bloom size was supposed to be 1½ inches (38mm) and that is a little large for my rose. Because these two were such old roses, I don’t think I will ever find an answer as to which one “Beryl Turner’s Tiny White” really is, but I lean towards ‘Pacquerette’.