I have no plant experience and it shows - what is this?

August 16, 2011 10:53 PM

Name this plant! (please?)

I was at Niagara Falls today, and right near the American falls we saw this large bush. (This is a closer look.) It also had very thorny branches.

We asked my dad's girlfriend (who is at the Falls quite often), and she said she thought they might be tomatillos, but it doesn't look like these pictures or the tomatillo referenced in this question.

Was she correct? If not, what are they?

posted by Lucinda to Home & Garden (5 answers total)

I'm pretty sure it's just a wild rose of some type. (See these, for example.) Wild roses are definitely around in the NE Americas.
posted by cobaltnine at 11:03 PM on August 16, 2011

They appear to be some variety of rose hips. Two very similar images in the first row at the link.
posted by Bruce H. at 11:03 PM on August 16, 2011

Rugosa rose. The bulbs are rose hips.
posted by summerstorm at 11:06 PM on August 16, 2011

Best answer: I doubt it's Rosa canina- the fruits are usually oval, and the one in your photo are flattened. Leaves are usually smoother, too. The hips are much more similar to Rosa rugosa as summerstorm says, and the crinkly leaves are rugosa-like as well (though the ones I've seen have much larger hips, but our summers are longer here so that may be why). However, Rosa nutkana also has somewhat crinkled leaves and flattened hips with long sepals. It's a Canadian native that is extremely hardy, so I'm going to go with that.
posted by oneirodynia at 11:47 PM on August 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I'm marking both as correct since I would've just been happy with IT'S A VARIETY OF ROSE BUSH.
posted by Lucinda at 7:26 AM on August 17, 2011