Rosa carolina L.

  • Authority

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

  • Family

    Rosaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Rosa carolina L.

  • Description

    Species Description - Colonial; stems simple or little-branched, rarely over 1 m, usually copiously armed with internodal prickles, these all about alike in form, but variable in size, straight, slender, and terete to the base, which is mostly less than half as long as the body; infrastipular prickles scarcely differentiated; stipules glandular-dentate to entire; lfls 3–7, oblong to oval or subrotund, often more than half as wide as long, coarsely toothed, in some forms glandular on the margin; fls usually borne singly on stems of the season; pedicel and hypanthium stipitate-glandular; sep attenuate into a linear tip, or rarely with a narrow foliaceous appendage, soon spreading or reflexed, then deciduous; pet pink, 2–3 cm; hips red, 8–12 mm thick; 2n=28. Uplands woods, dunes, and prairies; Me. to Minn., s. to Fla. and Tex. (R. housei; R. humilis; R. lyonii; R. obovata) Hybridizes extensively with R. arkansana (forming R. ×rudiuscula), and R. virginiana, and perhaps less often with R. acicularis and R. palustris.

  • Common Names

    pasture-rose