Shrub, forming dense clumps 1 - 2 m tall

Stem: upright, stout, with dense straight prickles and bristles, densely hairy on new growth and prickle bases. The prickles beneath the stipules are larger and recurved.

Leaves: pinnately compound, hairy-stalked, with five to nine leaflets. The leaflets are dark green and wrinkled above, pale pubescent and net-veined (reticulate) beneath, 2.5 - 5 cm long, elliptic to oblong but inversely egg-shaped, with a pointed to blunt tip and a toothed and recurved margin.

Flowers: one to a few per cluster, 7 - 12 cm across, with a glandular-bristly and hairy stalk, a more or less hairless floral tube (hypanthium), persistent sepals 2.5 - 4. 5 cm long, and rose-purple (rarely white) petals 3 - 5 cm long.

Fruit: bony achenes surrounded by the mature floral tube (hip). The hip is dark red, 2 - 3 cm across, mostly depressed-spherical with persistent erect sepals at the tip.

Stipules: subtending leaves, widening near tip, hairy beneath.

Similar species: Hairy branches and prickles, wrinkled leaflets, and large rose-purple flowers make Rosa rugosa easy to distinguish from other roses of the Chicago Region.

Flowering: June to September

Habitat and ecology: Introduced from Asia, this species is planted as an ornamental and occasionally escapes in the Chicago Region.

Occurence in the Chicago region: non-native

Etymology: Rosa is the Latin name for a rose. Rugosa means wrinkled.

Author: The Morton Arboretum

Stems 1-2 m, densely prickly, the infrastipular prickles larger, decurved; young parts of the stem, young prickles, and prickle-bases densely tomentose; lfls (5)7 or 9, dark green and rugose above, 2.5-5 cm; pedicels glandular-bristly and pubescent; hypanthium smooth or nearly so; pet 3-5 cm; hips dark red, mostly depressed-globose and 2-3 cm thick, crowned with the persistent, erect sep; 2n=14. Native of e. Asia, frequently escaped from cult., often maritime.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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