Low, densely prickly suckering shrub of sand dunes with tiny fern-like leaflets and round black hips
Burnet rose.
Nature · Shrubs
Burnet rose
Native · flowers May–Jun · sand dunes, limestone pavement and coastal cliffs
Rosa pimpinellifolia — Rosaceae
A low, thicket-forming native rose of sand dunes, limestone pavement and coastal grassland, bristling with slender prickles, with small fern-like leaves, creamy-white flowers in early summer and round black hips. Also called the Scotch rose, it is the wild rose of dunes and the ancestor of many garden 'Scotch roses'.
How to spot them
- ▸Low suckering shrub, usually 0.5–1 m, forming dense thickets on dunes and limestone
- ▸Stems densely covered with numerous slender prickles and bristles (acicles)
- ▸Small leaves of 7–11 leaflets, each only about 1 cm long — fern-like, like burnet
- ▸Cupped creamy-white flowers with prominent yellow stamens, single, in early summer
- ▸Round, dark purple-black hips (not red) in autumn
How to know it
Its small leaves of 7–11 tiny leaflets resemble those of a herb of chalk grassland, from which its name comes
Burnet rose (pimpinellifolia — 'burnet-leaved').
Alone among common wild roses, its hips ripen to purplish black rather than red
Burnet rose.
Freely suckering, it forms thickets on stable dunes and in the grykes of limestone pavement
Burnet rose.
Known in gardens as the Scotch rose, it has been cultivated since before 1600
Burnet rose (RHS).
A creamy-white rose with prominent yellow stamens flowers early, in May and June, on a plant rarely taller than a metre
Burnet rose.
Quick-fire facts
- •Rosa pimpinellifolia (also Rosa spinosissima, 'most spiny'), family Rosaceae; the epithet means 'with leaves like Pimpinella' (burnet saxifrage)
- •RHS: compact native rose with prickly stems, fern-like leaves and single creamy-white flowers, then round black hips; freely suckering, 0.5–1 m tall
- •BSBI key: low, about 50 cm; numerous slender prickles and acicles; small leaves of 7–11 leaflets; hips purplish-black; suckering shrub
- •Native to Britain and Ireland; usually confined to sand dunes, limestone pavements and chalk downland near the coast
- •Also called Scotch rose; garden forms have been grown since before 1600
- •Compare: dog rose (arching, pink-white, red hips), field rose (trailing, styles fused, white), sweet briar (apple-scented glands, upright)
Drill it — 6 cards
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Sources
- Royal Horticultural Society — Rosa pimpinellifolia (Scotch rose)
- Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland — Rosa, Roses (plant crib)