Personal correspondence: Robert Erskine to Percy Wright, Percy Wright fonds, University of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
June 17, 1976
For years I grew seedlings of Rosa acicularis AURORA, but they all had pink flowers until a new one bloomed last week, which had flowers of a better red than those on its' parent bush. They are deeper colored, less blue, and nearer scarlet. It also has the most attractive leaves I have ever seen on a native rose bush. If I could get another seedling like it but with 15 or 20 petals, it should be valuable. Acicularis blooms at a time when the flowering crabs and plums are over but other roses have not started.

Personal correspondence: Robert Erskine to Percy Wright, Percy Wright fonds, University of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

"The red flowered Rosa acicularis that you mentioned as doing so well this year might be my Aurora. I don't remember just when I sent you plants of it. My red one differs from Porter's in the petals. The Shellbrook's petals have a space between them and the flowers form a 5 point star when wide open while the Aurora's petals overlap and form a scalloped moon in form. Shellbrook has very long hips and Auroras hips are plumper. Both have bluish foliage but Aurora's leaves are nearer round in form. I have seedlings that are a cross of the two but they have not bloomed yet.

Mature leaves of R. acicularis 'Aurora' have a pleasant evergreen fragrance when rubbed. The flowers themselves have a clove-like fragrance to my nose.

"I have found some interesting plants of R. acicularis. The one I named "Aurora" has red flowers with thick wide petals (5) and good foliage that colors well in the fall. It is the only non-suckering wild rose that I have ever observed, so is slow propagating."

Personal correspondence Robert Erskine to Walter Schowalter March 26, 1965