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Portrait of Sweet briar

Nature · Shrubs

Sweet briar

Native (local) · flowers Jun–Jul · calcareous scrub, downland and dunes

Rosa rubiginosa — Rosaceae

An upright, dense wild rose whose leaflets, dotted underneath with sticky glands, smell of ripe apples when rubbed or after rain. Native but local on lime-rich scrub, downland and dunes in southern England, it is Shakespeare's 'eglantine'.

How to spot them

  • ▸Foliage smelling strongly of apples when crushed, from sticky, brownish glands on the leaflet undersides
  • ▸Erect, arching shrub with straight stems, hooked prickles mixed with bristly glandular hairs
  • ▸Clear pink flowers, single, about 4 cm across, in summer
  • ▸Sepals stay spreading and persistent on the ripening red hips; styles hairy; short glandular flower-stalks
  • ▸Separate it from dog rose (smooth, unscented leaves, sepals folded back and shed) and from field rose (styles fused in a column)

How to know it

Crush the leaflets and they smell of ripe apples, the scent coming from sticky glands on the underside

Sweet briar.

Medieval Latin for 'prickly' gave the name eglantine, which Shakespeare used for the bank where Titania sleeps

Sweet briar (A Midsummer Night's Dream).

Sepals stay spreading and persist on the red hips, and the styles are hairy, unlike a commoner pink-flowered hedge climber

Sweet briar versus dog rose (BSBI key).

Scented foliage, pink flowers and red hips on a compact, upright shrub of calcareous downs and coastal dunes

Sweet briar.

Though widespread across southern England, this lime-loving rose remains local and has been lost from some sites through habitat destruction

Sweet briar (BSBI).

Quick-fire facts

  • •Rosa rubiginosa, family Rosaceae; rubiginosa means 'rusty', for the brown glands; also called eglantine, from a medieval Latin word meaning 'prickly'
  • •The apple scent comes from densely glandular, sticky brown hairs on the leaflet undersides
  • •BSBI: native to Great Britain, Ireland and the Channel Islands; Least Concern; hedges and scrub on downs, hillsides and dunes, on calcareous soils
  • •Widespread in southern England but distinctly local; expanding in coastal north-east England and eastern Scotland, partly from garden cultivation and bird dispersal
  • •Shakespeare's 'sweet musk-roses and with eglantine' is in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Titania's bank
  • •Compare: dog rose (unscented, sepals deflexed), field rose (white, styles fused), burnet rose (low, black hips)
  • •Grows up to about 2.5–3.5 m; hips are red and last into winter (RHS)

Drill it — 6 cards

1 / 6new card

Sources