I haven\u2019t done any rose hunting since my husband died, but the other day a rose found me.\u00a0 I was walking on a country road near our family\u2019s summer cottage in central New York State when I caught sight of a flower growing in the right-of-way at the edge of a hedgerow beside the highway.\u00a0 It was a rose\u2014about two inches wide, with five pale pink petals surrounding a central boss of golden stamens.\u00a0\u00a0 A closer look revealed that it was part of a sprawling shrub that meandered through the abundant early summer underbrush.\u00a0 The remains of other blooms clung to the stems and a few pink buds suggested that more flowers were in the offing.<\/p>\n
Positioning myself somewhat precariously over the deep ditch that separated the road shoulder from the hedgerow, I pulled out my cellphone and took as many pictures as I could of the flower, stems, prickles and leaves.<\/p>\n
The flower\u2019s shape and petal count suggested a wild or species rose.\u00a0 A number of wild roses are native to North America and the research I did when I returned to the cottage suggested five possible species, all of which bear light to medium pink blooms.<\/p>\n
My rose had foliage that botanists describe as \u201cpinnately compound\u201d, which means that each \u201cleaf\u201d is actually a cluster of odd-numbered leaflets.\u00a0 Most of the leaflet clusters on my rose bore five medium green leaflets.\u00a0 This seemed to rule out one species, Rosa woodsia, which most commonly sprouts pinnately compound leaves with three to nine blue-green leaflets.<\/p>\n
That left four more possibilities.<\/p>\n
I looked at the prickles on my rose, which were somewhat hook-shaped and mostly paired on the stems.\u00a0 This prickle arrangement was at odds with descriptions of two other species native to my area, Rosa carolina and Rosa nitida.\u00a0 Carolina roses feature \u201cstraight, needle-like thorns\u201d and nitida roses bear stems that are covered in bristles.<\/p>\n
Only two natives remained, and they appeared almost identical in the pictures I saw online.<\/p>\n
The odds were in favor of Rosa virginiana, which is the most common wild rose in this part of the country.\u00a0 However, Rosa palustris, aka \u201cthe swamp rose\u201d was also a serious contender.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, swamp roses occur in wet or frequently wet spaces.\u00a0 My rose was growing adjacent to a ditch that fills with water whenever it rains hard.\u00a0 Clearly \u201cwet feet\u201d were no obstacle for this particular plant.<\/p>\n
In the end, identification came down to the stipules, plant parts that are generally of interest only to botanists.\u00a0 These growths are, according to the Connecticut Botanical Society, \u201csmall, leaf-like appendages at the base of a leaf stalk.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at the stipules on my rose plant.\u00a0 They were not exactly enormous, but were clearly fatter than the narrow leaf stipules of Rosa palustris.\u00a0 My rose was almost certainly the Virginia rose, not the swamp rose.<\/p>\n
Of course, most of us fall victim to \u201cAntiques Roadshow\u201d syndrome and live in the hopes of finding rare and valuable antiques in forgotten corners of the attic, garage or cellar.\u00a0 Plant lovers feel the same way about finding unusual plants.\u00a0 I was happy about making a positive identification of my wild rose, but I would have been even happier had it been the more unusual Rosa carolina or even the second runner-up, swamp rose.<\/p>\n
Still, my rose discovery revived my interest in rose hunting.\u00a0 Now I am consulting old maps to find rural cemeteries.\u00a0 Who knows, maybe the next cemetery will hold a rose that has been lost to commerce for the past century.\u00a0 I will get out the poison ivy remedy and prepare for the hunt.<\/p>\n For some people, the word \u201cvacation\u201d means trips to the beach and hours spent wallowing in trashy novels.\u00a0 Others wouldn\u2019t go near a beach or a trashy novel, but love to tramp around historical sites, museums or battlefields.\u00a0 It all depends on your definition of another important word\u2014 \u201crelaxation\u201d. My husband and I used to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[1903,1902,1899,1898,1906,1904,194,1901,1905,1900,1576],"class_list":["post-2458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-native-roses","tag-north-american-roses","tag-rosa-palustris","tag-rosa-virginiana","tag-rose-identification","tag-rose-rustling","tag-species-roses","tag-swamp-rose","tag-tom-christopher","tag-virginia-rose","tag-wild-roses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2460,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458\/revisions\/2460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Five-petaled](\"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Rosa-virginiana.jpg\")
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