Got any idea what this rose is? Planted by a previous owner of the rancho, it blossomed yesterday, presenting a mystery. It might be a Polyantha called Mme. Norbert LeVasseur, or it might be a China called Martha Gonzales. But I’m not sure because it doesn’t wholly resemble either one. So what is it?
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
Could it be just a common old primrose??
No. It’s definitely an antique rose. Primrose is a wildflower that doesn’t have serious thorns like this does.
It is definitely a rose — you can tell from the leaves. It does look a little like Martha Gonzales, but the foliage is not bronzy enough. Martha also has a little white stripe on a couple petals of the most of her flowers and I don’t see that here. How tall is it? Any fragrance? There’s a taller single red that looks a little like Martha called Old Gayhill. It gets taller than Martha and the foliage is greener. No fragrance (like Martha). Are the flowers in clusters or singly on the stem? If they are not clusters it is not a polyantha.
Never mind, Old Gay Hill has a white eye. The flower looks a lot like a climber called Altissimo. Check out the Antique Rose Emporium website and look at the list of roses they grow — most have pictures. Maybe you can find something that resembles this rose.
I thought of Gay Hill, too. It’s a single bloom, little fragrance, with long spindley canes. It seems to have been planted in a spot where there was more sun years ago than there is now. So a pair of long canes have grown out to reach the sun, with only one bloom per cane. Before I retired, I used to cut it back to make room for other plants since it didn’t bloom, anyway. This year I let it grow out in hopes of seeing a bloom to figure out what it is. Altissimo is possible. The canes are long enough to be a climber.