Rosier De Lady Banks

Shrubs evergreen, climbing, to 6 m tall. Old branches with large, rigid prickles; branchlets red-brown, terete, glabrous; prickles scattered, curved, short, to 5 mm, flat, gradually tapering to a broad base; branches of cultivated plants sometimes not prickly. Leaves including petiole 4–6 cm; stipules caducous, free, linear-lanceolate, membranous, margin entire, apex acuminate; rachis and petiole sparsely pubescent, usually lacking small prickles; leaflets 3–5, rarely 7, elliptic-ovate or oblong-lanceolate, 2–5 × 0.8–1.8 cm, leathery, abaxially pubescent along veins, with prominent midvein, adaxially glabrous, shiny, base subrounded or broadly cuneate, margin depressed-serrulate, apex acute or slightly acute. Flowers 4–15, in simple umbels or corymbs, 1.5–2.5 cm in diam.; pedicel 2–3 cm, glabrous; bracts caducous, linear, small. Hypanthium globose or ovoid, glabrous. Sepals 5, deciduous, ovate, abaxially glabrous, adaxially white pubescent, margin entire, apex long acuminate. Petals 5, semi-double, or double, fragrant or not, white or yellow, obovate, base cuneate, apex rounded. Carpels numerous; styles free, much shorter than stamens, densely pubescent. Hip orange or black-brown, globose or ovoid, 5–7 mm in diam., glabrous, with deciduous sepals. Fl. Apr–May, fr. Aug–Oct. 2n = 14*, 28*.

Cultivated.

Gansu, Guizhou, Henan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Yunnan; also widely cultivated in China.

Thickets, scrub, valleys, stream sides, roadsides; 500--2200 m.

Rosa banksiae var. alboplena Rehder.