COMMON WILD ROSE.
Rosa Californica, Cham. and Schlecht. Rose Family.
Erect shrubs three to eight feet high. Prickles few; stout; recurved; mostly in pairs beneath the entire stipules. Leaves.—Alternate; pinnate; with five to seven leaflets. Leaflets.—Ovate or oblong; serrate. Flowers.—Few to many in clusters; pale-pink. Calyx.—With urn-shaped tube and five-cleft border, whose lobes are foliaceously tipped. Petals.—Five; six to nine lines long. Stamens.—Very numerous. Ovaries.—Several; bony; in, but free from, the calyx-tube. Hips.—Many; four or five lines through. Hab.—From San Diego to Oregon.
The wild rose is one of the few flowers that blooms cheerfully through the long summer days, lavishing its beautiful clusters of deliciously fragrant flowers as freely along the dusty roadside as in the more secluded thicket. In autumn it often seems inspired to a special luxuriance of blossoming, and it lingers to greet the asters and mingle its pink flowers and brilliant scarlet hips with their delicate lilacs.
[CALIFORNIAN ROSE-BAY—Rhododendron Californicum.]
![[CALIFORNIAN ROSE-BAY—Rhododendron Californicum.]](#3624944100741987669_f084.png.id-212030125718554778.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
R. gymnocarpa, Nutt., "the redwood-rose," is exquisitely dainty. This is found in shady places under the trees. It blooms earlier than the common species, and is neither so abundant nor so fragrant. Its flowers are barely an inch across and of a bright pink. The prickles are straight, and the calyx-lobes are without leafy tips, while the leaflets are small and shapely.