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Rosa carolina L.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Rosa carolina' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/rosa/rosa-carolina/). Accessed 2026-05-14.

Family

  • Rosaceae

Genus

Synonyms

  • R. humilis Marsh.
  • R. pensylvanica Wangenh.
  • R. virginiana Du Roi, not Mill.
  • R. parviflora Ehrh.
  • R. lyonii Pursh
  • R. carolina var. villosa (Best) Rehd.
  • R. humilis var. villosa Best

Glossary

adnate
Fused with a different part by having grown together. (Cf. connate.)
corymb
Unbranched inflorescence with lateral flowers the pedicels of which are of different lengths making the inflorescence appear flat-topped.
glabrous
Lacking hairs smooth. glabrescent Becoming hairless.
lustrous
Smooth and shiny.
ovate
Egg-shaped; broadest towards the stem.
receptacle
Enlarged end of a flower stalk that bears floral parts; (in some Podocarpaceae) fleshy structure bearing a seed formed by fusion of lowermost seed scales and peduncle.

References

There are no active references in this article.

Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Rosa carolina' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/rosa/rosa-carolina/). Accessed 2026-05-14.

Rosa carolina

Hip of Rosa carolina in forest understorey (Shawnee State Forest, Ohio, August 2022). Image John Grimshaw.

A small, suckering shrub, rarely more than 3 ft high in the wild; stems from the stolons densely clad with prickly bristles; upper stems with straight, slender prickles, which are usually paired at the nodes, scattered but fairly numerous between the nodes. Leaflets five or, more commonly, seven, elliptic or narrowly ovate, 5⁄8 to 11⁄2 in. long, sharply toothed, the teeth rather spreading and averaging about twelve on each side, dull or slightly lustrous above, glabrous on both sides or softly downy beneath. Stipules narrow, the adnate halves of each pair more or less parallel and sometimes upfolded, forming a tube. Flowers in June or early July, solitary, or few in a corymb, 11⁄2 to 2 in. wide, light pink. Pedicels and receptacle usually clad with stalked glands. Fruits red, more or less globular, about 3⁄8 in. wide.

Native of N. America from Maine to Florida, west to the Prairie States and Texas, inhabiting mainly dry and open habitats; cultivated by James Sherard at Eltham, in 1732, but uncommon in gardens, where it has been confused with R. palustris.

'Alba'

Leaflets hairy beneath. Flowers white (R. virginiana var. alba Baker in Willmott; R. lyonii f. alba Rehd.). Discovered at Cherryfields, Maine, in 1867.

'Nuttalliana'

Flowers somewhat larger than average, borne as late as September. Received at Kew from William Paul’s nursery 1894 (R. carolina var. nuttalliana Hort.).A further difference between R. carolina and R. palustris is that the former is tetraploid and the latter diploid. Natural hybrids between them have been reported, and those studied by Mrs Erlanson were triploid and sterile, as might be expected. These hybrids had the habit of R. carolina but showed the influence of R. palustris in the more finely and more numerously toothed leaflets. Diploid and fertile plants apparently combining the characters of R. carolina and R. palustris are now thought to be the result of hybridisation between the latter and R. blanda.

'Plena'

Flowers double, the outer petals fading to white with age. Sepals with long, slender tips (R. parviflora var. plena Ehrh.). In the late 18th and early 19th centuries this seems to have been the commonest representative of the species in gardens, and the only one seen by Lindley, according to whom it ‘does not yield in beauty to the most splendid varieties of gallica’. It was a weak grower and, according to Thory in Redouté’s Les Roses, most gardeners lost it through weeding out the suckers that it needed to perpetuate itself. Probably for this reason it became extinct in Europe, but around 1955 it was rediscovered in the USA by Mr and Mrs Wilson Lynes, who sent plants to Graham Thomas (see his Shrub Roses of Today, p. 71 and fig. 2).The rose figured in Willmott’s The Genus Rosa as R. humilis var. grandiflora (Vol. 1, p. 207, t.) appears to be the same as one distributed by Smith of Newry towards the end of the last century as R. lucida grandiflora, with large flowers and obovate or broadly elliptic leaflets. This rose is the type of R. carolina var. grandiflora (Bak.) Rehd., said to occur wild in the USA. But, whatever the status of the wild plants, the type of this variety seems to be nearer to R. virginiana than to R. carolina.

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