Rosa gallica

Colony-forming shrub to 1.5 m tall Stem: slender, upright, densely covered with unequal, stout, hooked prickles and bristles. Leaves: pinnately compound, the stalk and main axis (rachis) bristly, with three to seven (usually five) leaflets. The leaflets are dark green and wrinkled above, paler and lightly hairy beneath, 2 - 6 cm long, 2 - 3 cm wide, broadly elliptic to egg-shaped with a blunt to very short-pointed tip and a rounded to nearly heart-shaped base, toothed (sometimes glandular-toothed), and leathery. Flowers: usually solitary (rarely two or three) at branch-tips, 4 - 7 cm across, with a glandular-bristled floral tube (hypanthium) and stalk, non-persistent glandular and reflexed sepals, usually pinnately lobed outer sepals, and pink to crimson petals 2.5 - 4.5 cm long with the number of petals usually largely increased (double). Fruit: bony achenes surrounded by the mature floral tube (hip). The hip is dark red and nearly spherical or top-shaped (turbinate). Stipules: subtending leaves, narrow, with unattached lance-shaped tips.

Similar species: Rosa centifolia and Rosa gallica tend to have solitary flowers, unequal prickles, and glandular-toothed leaflets. Rosa centifolia differs by its longer, thinner leaflets and drooping flower stalks.

Flowering: June to July

Habitat and ecology: Introduced from Europe, this common cultivated species rarely escapes in the Chicago Region but is found throughout the eastern United States.

Occurence in the Chicago region: non-native

Etymology: Rosa is the Latin name for a rose. Gallica means French.

Author: The Morton Arboretum

Erect colonial shrub to 1(-1.5) m; stem with stout, hooked prickles and numerous bristles, the latter usually gland-tipped; lf-rachis with scattered short prickles; lfls 3-7, leathery, rugose above, sparsely hairy beneath, 2-6 נ2-3 cm, broadly elliptic to ovate, rounded to subcordate at base; fls mostly solitary at the branch-tips, often double; hypanthium and pedicels glandular-setose; sep deflexed and deciduous after anthesis, the outer usually pinnatifid; pet typically deep pink, (2.5-)3-4.5 cm; 2n=28. Native of Europe, rarely escaped from cult.

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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