Prickly Rose

Rosa acicularis Lindl. Ros. Monog. 44. 1820
Rosa Sayi Schw. in Keating, Narr. Exp. Long 2: 388. 1824.
Rosa stricla Macoun & Gibson, Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinb. 12: 324. 1875.
Rosa Engelmanni S. Wats. Garden & Forest 2: 376, in part. 1889.
Stem low, about 1 m. high, according to Lindley " about 8 feet high," densely covered with straight bristles or weak prickles; branches bristly or sometimes unarmed; stipules adnate, usually broad, in the American form pubescent, more or less glandular-granuliferous and glandular-ciliate, about 1.5 cm. long; leaflets 3-7, usually 5, elliptic or oval, 1.5-5 cm. long, usually simply and regularly serrate, entire towards the base, usually acute at both ends, dull and glabrous above, pale and finely and usually rather densely pubescent, in the American form sometimes somewhat glandular-granuliferous beneath; flowers usually solitary; pedicels 2-4 cm. long, rarely slightly glandular-hispid; hypanthium glabrous, pear-shaped or elliptic, acute at the base, in fruit 1-1.5 cm. broad and 1.5-2 cm. long, usually with a neck; sepals lanceolate, about 2 cm. long, tomentose on the margins and within, pubescent and more or less glandular on the back, caudate-acuminate, in fruit erect and persistent; petals obcordate, 2-2.5 cm. long; styles distinct, persistent, not exserted; achenes inserted in the bottom and on the sides of the hypanthium.
Type locality: Siberia.
Distribution: Alaska to Wyoming, Michigan and northern New York; also in Siberia.