The Dog-rose is very common in the lane-sides and hedgerows of the Monmouth area whereas the Field-rose is only fairly common. This is an extremely complex genus, with its own Facebook group dedicated to the finer points of ID and hybridisation. It should be noted that the name Dog-rose is used to describe a group of many hybrids and is used to represent the group.
Dog-rose, Rosa canina
When I first started research on the wild rose, I was surprised to find there was limited folklore, possibly because roses have been so long cultivated. The local names include, for the plant, Cat-rose in Cheshire and Briar-rose in Northumberland. There were many names for the fruit including Pixie Pears in Devon, Cat-jugs in Yorkshire and Soldiers in Kent. Children liked to put the seeds down each others' necks to cause itching hence the seed names Ticklers and Tickling Tommies in Devon. As usual Grigson's The Englishman's Flora is my source here.
Notwithstanding this at first apparent lack of folklore, one of the best ways of identifying roses in the canina group is through the sepals and I came across this folk-riddle in Richard Mabey's Flora Britannica.
On a summer's day, in sultry weather,
Five brethren were born together.
Two had beards and two had none
And the other had but half a one.
Mabey explains that the brethren are the five sepals, two of which are whiskered on both sides, two quite smooth and the fifth whiskered on one side only. Harrap's Wild Flowers refers to sepals being lobed, spreading at first then turning down against the hip and falling before it ripens.
Which description do you prefer?
Prickles are strongly curved and stems long and arching. The flowers vary from pink to white. These are a very pale pink.
Stigmas are in a small conical tuft.
What has been used in folklore medicine is the Robin's Pincushion or Bedeguar Gall, as seen below. Produced by the Bedeguar Gall Wasp on the Dog-rose, this is caused by a group of larvae each living in its own cell within the gall. These 'briar balls' were powdered and sold by apothecaries against worms and colic. They were also worn around the neck as an amulet against whooping cough. I spotted this small one in a nearby hedgebank.
The name Dog-rose appears in Gerard's Herbal, first published in 1597, to distinguish the wild rose from the garden roses. He writes of the fruit being used as food making "most pleasant meates and banketting dishes, as Tartes and such like".
In WW2 the hips of wild roses became really important as a source of Vitamin C. It had been known since the 1930s that wild hips had a higher proportion of the vitamin than any other common fruit or vegetable. In 1941 the Ministry of Health started a scheme for voluntary collection and processing into rosehip syrup. By the end of the war the annual harvest was over 450 tons. Collectors, often children, were paid 3d a pound and some made quite significant sums of money. Collecting for National Rose Hip Syrup went on until the early 1950s.
Field-rose, Rosa arvensis
This plant was trailing over bracken and other vegetation on a local woodland ride. The flowers are always creamy white with the projecting style fused into a slender, hairless pin like column. The anthers are conspicuous and golden.
The stems are wine-red on the sunlit upper side and contrastingly green below. They have slender curved prickles.
I hope you have found this blog interesting. I plan to post more more on native plants in a few days.
Acknowledgements are due to Harrap's Wild Flowers, Stace 4, Richard Mabey Flora Britannica, Grigson An Englishman's Flora and the website of NatureSpot. Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment