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Rosaceae
Sweet Briar Rose
Rosa rubiginosa
Apple-scented memory and English summers.
- Family
- Rosaceae
- Genus
- Rosa
- Native to
- Europe, western Asia
- Bloom season
- Early Summer
- Type
- deciduous shrub
- Height
- 2–3 m
- Sunlight
- full sun
- Soil
- any well-drained, prefers chalk
- Water
- low
- Hardiness
- 4–9
- Lifespan
- long-lived perennial
Did you know
- Its leaves smell strongly of sweet apples when bruised — a feature unique among the wild roses.
- Shakespeare wove it into Oberon's speech in A Midsummer Night's Dream as 'sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine'.
- Traditionally called 'eglantine', the name came from Latin 'aculeus' (prickle) — for its many sharp thorns.
- Its rose hips are unusually rich in vitamin C and have been brewed into syrup since the medieval period.
- Empress Joséphine planted it in her famous Malmaison rose collection alongside hundreds of other historical roses.
Color meanings
Pink
remembered fragrance and old gardens