Beach rose

You've done a good job in finding a rose. But there are many kinds of roses, and it's important to take a very close look at the plant, and at your field guide or plant sheets, and make sure there's a good match.

To make is a bit more challenging, remember that just looking at one part of a plant isn't enough. You need to look at leaves, stems, flowers, fruits, plant form, and sometimes even the roots. That's why the plant information sheets are so helpful ... someone has created them specifically to help you identify particular plants.

Here are the things I think are unique about rugose roses:

1-The veins in their leaves are depressed from the tops ... they almost look like the stitching on a quilt. That quality is called "rugose leaves."

2-The hips are fairly large, compared to other roses. That, of course, is something that you can only appreciate after you've looked at a lot of roses!

3-The stems are thorny. All roses have thorny stems, but on rugose roses, the thorns are straight and light brown, and they stick straight out of the stem in all directions ... and they are so close together that you cannot hold a stem without your fingers touching many thorns.

4-The flowers are pink or white, and have five petals. That's a characteristic that many kinds of roses share.

It's when you put all of these characteristics together that you can identify the specific type of rose.

So ... you're correct that this is a rose. But if you look closely, you'll see that the four things I've listed above aren't part of the rose you found. The rose you found looks like "Multiflora Rose". I can't be entirely sure because a few characteristics are missing from your photos ... could you go back and take another look? If you don't know what to look for to see if a rose is a multiflora rose, you could return a message to me, and I could help you out.

Best wishes with your plant hunting!

Lois