Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants

Class: Magnoliopsida -- dicots

Order: Rosales

Family: Rosaceae -- rose

Common Name: baldhip rose, dwarf rose

Species Code: ROGY

Origin: Native to dry to moist, open to semi-open forests at low to middle elevations of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, and western Montana.

Rare: no

Form: shrub, deciduous, slender, spreading to erect, 30-120 cm tall; prickles generally, straight, slender and bristly, occasionally nearly unarmed; mature bark grayish brown.

Mature height: 1-4 feet

Duration: perennial

Longevity: long-lived

Habitat Type: forest

Wetland Indicator Status: FACU

Leaves: alternate, odd-pinnately compound; leaflets 5-9, elliptic to elliptic-obovate or occasionally ovate, 1-4 cm long by 0.5-3 cm wide, margins usually double serrate with stipitate glands on the teeth and occasionally the leaf rachis and the underside of the midrib also stipitate-glandular, otherwise glabrous.

Flowers: small, scattered, borne terminally on the lateral branches, usually solitary; sepals 5, 5-12 mm long, broad at the base and narrowing to a caudate tip, deciduous, not persisting on the maturing hypanthium (hip); petals 5, 1-1.5 cm long, light pink to deep rose; hypanthium 2-3 mm wide in flower, glabrous; pistils and stamens numerous.

Flower color: pink

Bloom: May, June, into July at high elevations

Bloom starts on: mid-May

Bloom ends on: late June

Fruit: achene, few, 3-5 mm long, with a few hairs at the end, otherwise glabrous, enclosed in the hypanthium (hip); hip orange to bright red, 6-10 mm long, globose to pyriform or ellipsoid, the sepals not persisting on the tip.

Characteristics:
Rosa is a complex and variable genus which hybridizes freely and sometimes exhibits polyploidy and/or apomixis.
Reproduces both sexually by seed and vegetatively by rhizomes.
28,000 seeds/lb (Meyer undated, USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2010).
2n=14 (Baldwin et al 2004, Hitchcock et al 1969).
Flowers are perfect.
Fruit is an achene enclosed in the fleshy hypanthium. The hypanthium is commonly called a hip. Unlike most rose species, the sepals do not remain attached to the hypanthium very long after anthesis.
Rose hips are high in vitamin C and are sometimes used to make tea or jelly (Patterson et al 1985).
Seeds are dispersed by the animals which eat the hips.
Hips are eaten by frugivorous birds (Piper 1986). Rosa spp. are important browse for Rocky Mountain elk in summer. Use is lower in fall and winter (Kufeld 1973).

Sun requirement: tolerates shade

Soil moisture: mesic

Precipitation: 12-24 inches (USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2010).

Fire:
Crowns may survive fire (Crane & Fischer 1986).
Sprouts from surviving root crowns and rhizomes. Resistant to fires of low to moderate severity (Reed 1993).

Sowing time: fall

Transplant time: spring or fall

Stratification: cold moist

Seed yield: low

Seed harvest: difficult

Seed first harvest: 3 to 5 years (Reed 1993).

Seed cleaning: medium difficulty

Planting duration: long

Seed insect problem: none noted

Seed shatter: low

Seed size: large

Seed harvest date: October?

Seed comments: Hips are eaten by birds.

Herbaria: Specimen data and digital resources from The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Keywords: native upland perennial forest shrub

Propagation:
1 protocol in the Native Plant Network
Golden Gate National Parks, California

Other Propagation Information:
Seeds need 90 days cold moist stratification at 5^oC (Meyer undated).
Seed stratified at 5^oC in moist sand begins germinating in 89 days (Piper 1986).
Seed needs 3 months cold moist stratification (Mirov & Kraebel 1939).
Reproduces both sexually by seed and vegetatively by rhizomes.

Notes: Grows to 8 feet tall in landscape situations. Flowers are few and not especially showy (Idaho Native Plant Society 1999).

References:
Baldwin, B.G., S. Boyd, B.J. Ertter, D.J. Keil, R.W. Patterson, T.J. Rosatti, and D.H. Wilken (eds). 2004. Jepson Online Interchange for California Floristics. University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley, CA. Accessed 2/10/10 online at http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/interchange.html

Crane, M. F., & William C. Fischer. 1986. Fire Ecology of the Forest Habitat Types of Central Idaho. General Technical Report INT-218. Ogden, UT. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station. 86 p.

Hitchcock, C. Leo, Arthur Cronquist, Marion Ownbey, and J.W. Thompson. 1969. Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest. University of Washington Press. Seattle, WA. 5 vol.

Idaho Native Plant Society. 1999. Native Plants of Northern Idaho for Landscaping and Restoration. INPS White Pine Chapter. Moscow, ID. Online at http://www.idahonativeplants.org/guides/NorthIdahoGuide.aspx

Kufeld, Roland. 1973. Foods Eaten by the Rocky Mountain Elk. Journal of Range Management 26:106-113.

Meyer, Susan E. undated. Rosa L. rose, briar. In: Bonner, Franklin T., and Rebecca G. Nisley (eds.). Woody Plant Seed Manual. USDA Forest Service. Available online at http://www.nsl.fs.fed.us/wpsm/

Mirov, N.T., and C.J. Kraebel. 1939. Collecting and Handling Seeds of Wild Plants. Civilian Conservation Corps Forestry Publ. No.5. US Government Printing Office. Washington, DC.

Morgan, P., & L.F. Neuenschwander. 1988. Seed-bank Contributions to Regeneration of Shrub Species after Clear-cutting and Burning. Canadian Journal of Botany 66:169-172.

Patterson, Patricia A., Kenneth E. Neiman, and Jonalea R. Tonn. 1985. Field Guide to Forest Plants of Northern Idaho. USDA Forest Service Intermountain Research Station. General Technical Report INT-180. Ogden, Utah.

Piper, J.K. 1986. Seasonality of Fruit Characteristics and Seed Removal by Birds. Oikos 46:303-310.

Reed, William R. 1993. Rosa gymnocarpa. In: Fire Effects Information System, [Online]. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory (Producer). Available: http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/ [accessed 2010, January 15].

USDA NRCS. 2010. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 10 February 2010). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

Zimmerman, G. Thomas, and L.F. Neuenschwander. 1984. Livestock Grazing Influences on Community Structure, Fire Intensity, and Fire Frequency within Douglas-fir/Ninebark Habitat Type. Journal of Range Management 37:104-110.

Links:
Plant Profile from the USDA PLANTS Database
Species account from the Fire Effects Information System
Species information from the University of Washington Herbarium