Shrub 1 - 3.5 m tall

Stem: erect, stout (new stems), with stout, unequal, flattened, recurved, 7 - 13 mm long prickles that are usually interspersed with some straight, slender prickles and glandular bristles (especially on flowering branches).

Leaves: pinnately compound, stalked, with five to nine leaflets. The leaflets are dark green, 1 - 2 cm long, broad elliptic or nearly round with a blunt to pointed tip, glandular-toothed, firm, more or less stalked-glandular on both sides and hairy beneath, with a strong apple-like scent.

Flowers: one to three, 3 - 5 cm across, with a stalked-glandular or glandular-hairy stalk and floral tube, a floral tube wall not very thickened around the opening, erect to spreading and sometimes pinnately lobed sepals that are glandular-hairy around the margins and somewhat persistent and hairy in fruit, pink petals 1 - 2 cm long, and short-haired styles that are shortly exserted.

Fruit: bony achenes surrounded by the mature floral tube (hip). The hip is scarlet to orange, nearly spherical or egg-shaped, with the sepals falling late.

Similar species: Rosa canina, Rosa eglanteria, and Rosa micrantha have stout, recurved prickles and small clusters of flowers with shorty exserted styles and often pinnately lobed sepals. Rosa canina is distingushed by its non-aromatic, glandless, egg-shaped to elliptic leaflets. Rosa micrantha differs by its slightly aromatic, glandular-toothed, egg-shaped to oval leaflets with pointed tips and glands beneath, and flowers with hairless and non-persistent sepals.

Flowering: mid-May to July

Habitat and ecology: Introduced from Europe, this cultivated species sometimes escapes into sedge meadows and low fields.

Occurence in the Chicago region: non-native

Etymology: Rosa is the Latin name for a rose. Eglanteria is a Latinized form of the English and French names.

Author: The Morton Arboretum

Stems erect, 1-3 m, armed with stout, unequal flattened, hooked prickles, often with some acicles (slender, straight prickles) and glandular setae intermingled, especially on the flower-branches; foliage sweetly aromatic, with an apple-like odor; lfls 5-9, firm, 1-2.5 cm, broadly elliptic to ovate or subrotund, doubly serrate with gland-tipped teeth, ±pubescent and coarsely stipitate-glandular beneath or on both sides; fls 1-3; pedicels and hypanthium stipitate-glandular or glandular- pubescent, the hypanthium not much thickened around the orifice; pet 1-2 cm, pink; sep glandular-ciliate, erect or spreading, ±pubescent in fr, some of or all them pinnately lobed; styles short-hairy, shortly exserted; 2n=35. Native of Europe, often escaped from cult. (R. rubiginosa)

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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