Rosa anemoniflora Fort. ex Lindl.

A bush with spreading branches armed with scattered slender prickles. Leaves with three or five leaflets – the latter on the young barren shoots of the first year. Leaflets ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 11⁄2 to 3 in. long, very finely and simply toothed, glabrous on both surfaces, dark green above, pale beneath. Stipules narrow, edged with glandular teeth or glandular ciliations. Flowers blush-white, 1 to 11⁄2 in. across, in loose corymbs, double, the inner ‘petals’ (modified stamens) narrow and ragged. Pedicels slender, naked, or with a few glandular bristles. Styles united into a slender, hairy column.

This rose was introduced from China in 1844, by Fortune, who found it in a garden at Shanghai. Plants with single flowers have been found in Fokien province, but whether these were genuinely wild is uncertain. R. anemoniflora is thought by some authorities to be a hybrid between R. multiflora and R. laevigata, and also shows some resemblance to R. banksiae. But in its essential characters it is a member of the Synstylae. It is a curious and rather pretty rose, but not very hardy.

Footnotes

This name is illegitimate, being antedated by R. anemoneflora Andrews in Roses, Vol. I, t. 32 (1821), but no other name is at present available (1979).