What kind of flower is this?

June 21, 2013 7:59 PM

I think it's some kind of wild rose, though not sure. The photo was taken in Ireland. Photo here: http://instagram.com/p/a1USOGv3BP/ Found something called a Winged Thorn Rose on Google images - but the petals of that rose were not jagged like the one in my photo. Officially stumped!
posted by aelish to Home & Garden (7 answers total)

What color is it? Can you un-tweak the instagram filters?
posted by small_ruminant at 9:56 PM on June 21, 2013

The Winged Thorn Rose (an Asian species) is a garden plant in the UK and Ireland, so it's unlikely to be it.

There are only about five common wild rose species in Ireland, but there are lots of hybrids and intermediate forms that even botanists can have problems identifying, and that's using features like whether the prickles are hooked or straight, the leaves downy or smooth, and various other things that won't show up in a photo of just the flower itself.

If it's a native rose on sandhills or near the sea, it's likely to be the Burnet rose (Rosa pimpinellifolia/spinosissima)

In hedges, there are:
Field rose (Rosa arvensis)
Dog rose (Rosa canina) This one is usually pink but you sometimes get white ones
Northern downy rose (Rosa sherardii) nearly always pink
Sweet briar (Rosa rubiginosa) also usually pink.
posted by Azara at 1:26 AM on June 22, 2013

Rosa rugosa, the wild rose, grows in the northeast. It is my favorite flower by far, and I spend my walk to work sniffing every wild rose (not otherwise occupied by a bumble bee) that I pass. Unless I am much mistaken, that is not a rosa rugosa. (And yes, they are usually pink, but I have seen white ones.)
posted by Cygnet at 5:03 AM on June 22, 2013

We have tons of wild raspberries growing along our road, and they have white flowers (and belong to the rose family). Maybe it's some kind of berry bramble, but hard to say.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 6:37 AM on June 22, 2013

@small_ruminant - here's the unedited version

@azara - a little confused by your first statement (the photo was taken in Ireland)

@Marie Mon Diue - I'm familiar with wild raspberries/blackeberries, etc....this is a big flower, bigger than the blossoms on brambles.
posted by aelish at 11:41 AM on June 22, 2013

It's a rose, but as Azara said, precise identification requires more than just a photo of the bloom. Why do you think it's wild, and not a cultivated variety?

At any rate, even roses of the same species or cultivar can have variations in the petal forms. Here's "White Wings" showing varied petal morphology (note that this rose has red stamens, so is not your rose).

There's no way to say definitively from just the photo, you'd need a specimen to key out.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:44 PM on June 22, 2013

@azara - a little confused by your first statement (the photo was taken in Ireland)

You seemed to be saying:
1. The photo was taken in Ireland
2. It looks like a wild rose
3. It looks most like a Winged Thorn Rose.

I was pointing out that it can't be both 2 and 3 at the same time: if 2, it's a native or naturalized species, if 3, it's an introduced Asian garden rose.
posted by Azara at 12:52 AM on June 23, 2013