Scrambling or erect shrub to c. 2.5 m high; stems lacking prickles or with sparse sturdy curved prickles, subglabrous. Leaves pinnate, 3–5(–7)-foliate; leaflets broadly ovate, ovate-oblong or obovate, mostly 25–60 mm long, 10–30 mm wide, base rounded to cuneate, apex acute or acuminate, margins serrate, both surfaces more or less glabrous, midvein on the lower leaf surface with scattered glands; stipules glabrous, margins fimbriate with dispersed gland-tipped hairs between teeth. Flowers solitary or in terminal few-flowered corymbs; peduncles subglabrous, sparsely glandular, not prickly. Sepals 5, outer ones sometimes pinnatifid, reflexed, margins glandular; petals 5, usually double, obovate, c. 20 mm long, emarginate, red, pink, purple or white; stamens and styles numerous, styles free, shortly protruding. Hip ovoid or pyriform, 15–20 mm long, glabrous, red, sepals not persistent. Flowers Dec.–Jan.
GipP, OtP, EGL, HSF. Also naturalised SA. Native to China. Known in Victoria from scattered occurrences in foothills south of the Dividing Range, usually growing in disturbed moist habitats. In many cases it is unclear if plants have truly naturalised or if they are just persisting in abandoned gardens.
This species has been widely hybridised and cultivated. Most plants encountered in Victoria are likely to be cultivars of this species rather than the ancestral form, and so may vary considerably from the above description. Some records of apparently naturalised Roses appear to resemble the cultivar ‘The Fairy’, a cultivated dwarf Rose in the Polyantha group. However, reliably identifying Rose cultivars is incredibly problematic, many have arisen from a series of complex hybridisations involving numerous parent species. In many cases it may be impossible to identify cultivated plants beyond the informal groups used to artificially classify Rose cultivars, see Spencer (2002b) for a detailed account of the history of Rose cultivation.
