Photo: Vihljun, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain / CC0. Unmodified apart from resizing.
Colour
pink, purple, white
Region
Japan and temperate East Asia
Season
spring, summer
Shape
single flower
Identification
A suckering shrub forming dense thickets 1–1.5 m tall, the stems densely covered in straight prickles 3–10 mm long. Leaves 8–15 cm, pinnate with 5–9 (mostly 7) leaflets with a distinctly corrugated surface (hence the epithet wrinkled), dark green and leathery above, grey-green and hairy beneath, crenate-serrate. Five-petalled flowers 6–9 cm across, dark pink to white, with 200–250 stamens and a strong scent; large flattened orange-red hips, edible. The Chinese word meigui once meant this plant alone and now covers cut-flower roses too.
Habitat
Coastal dunes and beaches, tolerant of salt and wind; also grown in gardens and as a perfume crop (Pingyin in Shandong, Kushui in Gansu). Wild Chinese populations are a second-class protected plant.
Distribution
Native to eastern Asia: north-east China, Japan, Korea and south-eastern Siberia; common on the coasts of Hokkaido and northern Honshu (hamanasu, Hokkaido's prefectural flower), wild on the Liaoning and Shandong coasts and grown everywhere in China; naturalised on coasts after introduction to Europe and North America. Absent from Singapore.
Season and behaviour
Peak bloom May and June, sporadic into September; in August and September the orange-red hips share the bush with late flowers.
Photography tips
These are the FilmAnalysis editors' notes, not content from the sources.
Roses on coastal dunes with sea and sky are the standard Hokkaido picture, with a wide lens from low down and sand in the foreground; flowers sway in the sea wind, so 1/800 s. The corrugated leaves have texture in side light; when hips and flowers share a branch, take both. The scent is strong, and close up the yellow stamens against pink want a macro.
Photographic styles
Pink roses on coastal dunes; hips and flowers on one branch.
Similar species
Multiflora rose (small white clustered flowers, unwrinkled leaves); China rose (smooth leaves, double flowers, repeat-flowering); Cherokee rose (large white flowers, prickly hips).
Related badge
The album badge "a rose" unlocks when the vision model explicitly names a a rose in your photo and you rate the analysis. The badge stops at "a rose": it does not tell species apart, and this page existing unlocks nothing.
The illustration is original FilmAnalysis artwork. The photograph is from Wikimedia Commons; its licence and author are under it.
Why it is listed: this species comes from the Flower checklist (GBIF backbone and Wikidata verified). Names follow the GBIF backbone and Wikidata; the facts follow the sources below; photo recognition is not offered.
