Appearance

Growth form

A deciduous shrub with sprawling or trailing stems that root where they touch the ground. Stems carry thin, slightly hooked prickles.

Leaves

Compound leaves with usually 7–9 glossy, hairless leaflets about 1–2 in (2.4–5 cm) long.

Flowers

Fragrant white flowers about 1¼–2 in (3–5.5 cm) across, in clusters of 2–9, in late May and June in Korea. Korean plants have flower stalks thick with sticky glandular hairs, while plants from China and Russia are often smooth there.

Fruit

Small orange-red hips about 3/8 in (1 cm) long ripen in September and October.

Look-alikes

Multiflora roseRosa multiflora

Multiflora rose has deeply fringed stipules (the leafy flaps at the leaf base), dull leaves, thick paired prickles, and smaller flowers (5/8–1½ in, 1.5–4 cm) in larger pyramid-shaped clusters, blooming a little earlier, in May.

Why they get mixed up · Both have clusters of white flowers and small red hips, and they hybridize where they grow together.

Where it lives

Typical habitats

• Forest edges
• Thickets
• Wet meadows
• Riverbanks

Range

Native to the Russian Far East, Manchuria (northeastern China), and Korea. Not native or naturalized in the US.

Preferred conditions

In Korea it grows in damp places such as forest edges, thickets, swamp forests, and riverbanks, often beside roads and fields, below about 1,600 ft (500 m).

Conservation

IUCN Red List

NENot Evaluated·Not yet assessed

Status

In South Korea it survives in only a few small populations, threatened by roadside clearing and by hybridizing with multiflora rose; a 2025 study proposed listing it as Endangered or Critically Endangered there.