Shrub 2 - 5 m tall Stem: climbing to trailing, hairless, usually with sparse prickles that are stout, recurved, and flattened at the base. Leaves: pinnately compound, with a stalked-glandular and sometimes sparsely prickly stalk and three or five leaflets. The leaflets are dull dark green and hairless above, paler and hairy beneath, 3- 10 cm long, lance-shaped to oblong-egg-shaped with an abruptly pointed tip, firm, and sharply toothed. Flowers: either male or female, found on separate plants (dioecious), borne several in a nearly flat-topped cluster (corymb), numerous, with a glandular-hairy stalk and floral tube (hypanthium), non-persistent reflexed and glandular-hairy sepals, usually pink petals fading to whitish, and stamens and styles (hairless and united) exserted about the same length. Fruit: bony achenes surrounded by the mature floral tube (hip). The hip is red, 8 - 12 mm long, and nearly spherical. Stipules: subtending leaves, very narrow with a lance-shaped tip, non-toothed and sometimes glandular-hairy along margin.

Similar species: The typical variety of Rosa setigera has shiny, hairless leaflets.

Flowering: late June to late July

Habitat and ecology: Woodland clearings and along edges of woods.

Occurence in the Chicago region: native

Etymology: Rosa is the Latin name for a rose. Setigera means bristle-bearing. Tomentosa means "densely wooly."

Author: The Morton Arboretum