dog rose
Rosaceae (Rose family)
Introduction to Vascular Plants
Species Information
General:
Medium to tall shrub, 1 to 3 m tall, often thicket-forming; stems stout, erect to arching, armed with flattened, curved or hooked prickles; mature stems olive-green.
Leaves:
Alternate, deciduous, odd-pinnately compound; leaflets 5 or 7, elliptic to egg-shaped, 1-4 cm long, mostly smooth, coarsely 1- or 2-saw-toothed, the teeth often gland-tipped.
Flowers:
Inflorescence of 1 to 5 stalked flowers at the end of a lateral branchlet; corollas white to pinkish, saucer-shaped, 5-7 cm across, the petals 5, 20-25 mm long; calyces smooth, 5-lobed, the lobes 10-20 mm long, some of them with narrow, toothed lateral segments, reflexed after flowering, falling off before the fruit ripens; ovaries superior but enclosed in the urn-shaped floral tube (hypanthium); stamens numerous.
Fruits:
Achenes, enclosed by the fleshy hypanthium, which ripens into a scarlet, globe- to egg-shaped or ellipsoid hip 1-2 cm long.
Illustration
If more than one illustration is available for a species (e.g., separate illustrations were provided for two subspecies) then links to the separate images will be provided below. Note that individual subspecies or varietal illustrations are not always available.
Illustration Source: The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia
Habitat and Range
Mesic to dry roadsides, open fields and abandoned homesteads in the lowland and steppe zones; rare in SW and SC BC; introduced from Eurasia.Status Information
Synonyms
Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Rosa corymbifera Borkh.
Taxonomic Keys
KEY TO ROSA
1. Stipules deeply fringed or comb-like; inflorescence multiflowered..........R. multiflora 1a. Prickles strongly curved, stout; calyx-lobes often with conspicuous lateral segments and usually reflexed after flowering.
2. Lower surface of leaflets stalked-glandular..............R. eglanteria 1a. Prickles not or slightly curved, often slender; calyx-lobes usually without lateral segments, usually ascending or erect after flowering.
3. Calyx-lobes deciduous in fruit, 12 mm long or less; petals 15 mm long or less...............R. gymnocarpa 4. Stems with well-defined infrastipular prickles (pair of prickles at or just below each node) or nearly unarmed.
5. Calyx-lobes usually glandular-bristly; leaflets finely toothed; plants from west of the Coast-Cascade Mountains............R. pisocarpa
6. Flowers small and clustered; calyx-lobes mostly 1-2 cm long and 2-3.5 mm wide at base; petals 1.2-2.5 cm long................R. woodsii 4. Stems more or less bristly with slender prickles; infrastipular prickles, if any, like the others.
7. Flowers mostly solitary, usually on lateral branchlets of current season; leaflets usually 5 to 7 (9); petals more than 2 cm long..................R. acicularis Source: Illustrated Flora of British Columbia (Vol. 4). (1999) |