ROSA CAROLINA 
Stem arching, brown, reaching a height of 6-10 feet; prickles often in infra- 
stipular pairs, uniform, small, slender, straight or slightly hooked. Leaflets 5-7, 
oblong, acute, faintly simply toothed, grey and softly pubescent on both surfaces ; 
petioles pubescent, not glandular; stipules adnate, with small ovate free tips. 
Flowers often several, corymbose ; peduncles glandular ; bracts ovate. Calyx-tube 
globose, often glandular ; lobes long, leaf-pointed, glandular on the back, simple or 
slightly compound. Petals bright pink. Styles villous, free, not protruded. 
Fruit small, urceolate-globose, bright red, naked or glandular, pulpy ; sepals 
deciduous. 
Rosa Carolina is distributed through eastern North America, 
from Canada (Ontario) and Nova Scotia southward to Florida, and 
is common in low, moist ground and in swamps. Erect in habit, it 
is the tallest of the American wild Roses, and one of the latest to 
flower. Its fruit is bright scarlet, and not only remains long on the 
plant, but keeps its form and colour. With its reddish stems and 
ruddy hips this plant is a beautiful object in the wild garden during 
winter. It grows freely and increases rapidly by its underground 
roots. It differs from the other American Roses by its grey, pubescent, 
faintly toothed leaflets and its adpressed stipules and small globose 
fruit. 
In the first edition of the Species Plantarum Linnaeus confused 
this Rose with Rosa virginiana Mill., which was called by Dillenius 
Rosa Carolina fragrans } The Rosa Carolina of the second edition, 
described from his own herbarium, is the true one, but here also 
Linnaeus quotes the synonym of Dillenius, though with a mark of 
doubt. 
Rosa Jlorida Donn 1 2 is merely a slight variety, with less hairy 
leaves than in the type. 
Note. — Redoutd, vol. i. p. 81 is Rosa Carolina var. corymbosa ; vol. i. p. 95 is 
Rosa Hudsomana var. salicifolia\ vol. ii. p. 109 is Rosa Hudsomana var. scandens ; 
vol. ii. p. 1 17 is Rosa Hudsomana var. subcorymbosa . This last is a semi-double 
form. 
1 Hort . Elth . vol. ii. p. 325 (1732). 
2 Hort. Cant . ed. 8, p. 169 (1815). 
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