Henry,
Any mention in the article about what part of the world the sick plants exist in? or what the symptoms might be?
It's going to be a while before I get to the Ag library.

Ann

"The virus used in this study was obtained from naturally
infected plants of Rosa rugosa âÂÂCharles AlbanelâÂÂ."

This is all that I could find in the full paper. It does refer to a 2011 paper:

8. Lockhart B, Zlesak D, Fetzer J (2011) Identification and partial characterization of six new viruses of cultivated roses in the USA.
   Acta Hortic 901:139��"147
   Since the 2011 paper has Jodi Fetzer's of the New York Botanical Garden name as one of the authors, perhaps the sample came from there. Please notice that this is only a "PERHAPS".

"Recently, we described a virus with spherical particles [8] associated with one of several new foliar diseases of rose. The virus was named Rosa rugosa leaf distortion virus (RrLDV) after the typical symptoms associated with infection by this virus. Both the disease and the virus were graft transmitted from diseased to healthy R. rugosa, suggesting that RrLDV is likely the causal agent of the disease (our unpublished results). The objectives of this study were to characterize the RrLDV genome and
determine its taxonomic and phylogenetic relationship to
known viruses."
-------------------------------
H.Kuska comment; I am frustrated that so many of these individual papers offer so little information of usefullness to the average rose grower. Possibly the editors pressure the authors to be as consise as possible.

Dave Zlesak has commented on a future publication that appears to be more consumer orientated.

http://www.rosebreeders.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=54298

Here is a link that might be useful: link for above