I'm in the province of Piacenza in Italy, in the northern foothills of the Appenines. Dog roses are the commonest wild rose locally, R. canina and possibly related species, of which my 'Flora Piacentina' informs me there are a number found in the province, but my botanical knowledge isn't sufficient to allow me to differentiate them, though I see variations. R. gallica is also common, often growing in ditches by the side of the road, and I've seen R. arvensis. According to the 'Flora' R. spinosissima is common in the hills, but I don't recall ever seeing it. There are other rose species listed for the province, some found only in a few sites, others growing at higher elevations.
Melissa

I've seen Rosa californica and Rosa spithamea growing wild in my area. Also I am only about a mile and a half away from Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden which specializes in California natives and they have a lovely collection of CA species roses. They grow them in plant communities so that one can see what other plants they would normally have as companions.

Here is a current list of species roses they have growing on the grounds (they also have an impressive list of native rose seeds collected from various counties around the state, plus a few from Baja California (Mexico)):

The only place I've seen wild roses is in the Sierras and at Palomar Mountain (of the famed observatory) which is about an hour away from us, but I'm unable to identify either variety, and neither looked spectacular in any way, just low thickets. There was the lovely wild fragrance, though.

Ingrid

Both canina and eglantine (rubiginosa) thrive in Norfolk......but our area is most notable for the little spinossissima, Dunwich Rose which has extraordinary tolerance to seaspray, growing in the dunes by the North sea. R.arvensis can still be found in older hedgerows, scrambling on banks.

R. bracteata, surprisingly. Used to be quite a nuisance in my old warmer zone (introduced) but I've also seen some here, along creek bottoms.

Beautiful flowers, horrid canes form huge hummocks 10' tall that will cover pastures along TX coastal regions. Has to be bulldozed, chained, sprayed &/or burned, repeatedly, to clear it out.

I've found r. nutkana growing in a number of open places and r. gymnocarpa at the edge of some woods here. There are some others in a native plant area I've seen but I am not sure what they are. Maybe next spring I'll find an id for them. It's a lot of fun to look.

r. nutkana
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r. gymnocarpa

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By far the most common rose here is feral multiflora. There is more than enough of it to seriously dampen anyone's enthusiasm for small clusters of white flowers. The smell is interesting, and practically everywhere.

If you know where to look, there are places the multiflora is replaced by setigera. Someday the camera and I will head south. There is a place where the road turns to little better than dirt as it heads down to river level. Then it goes over a creek heading into one of the Hudson River tidal bays. After a short distance, it takes a sharp turn to go over another creek. If you miss that turn, you'll end up in a thicket of setigera.

Other wild roses are out there, but much harder to find. Virginiana may be the only other one we've seen out of a garden. In the garden there are a lot of species.

R. spithamea, R. pisocarpa, and R. gymnocarpa are native to my county. All of the other species roses were brought here by humans, birds or animals. R. woodsii, R. canina, and R. californica are quite common in this area.

Smiles,
Lyn

I live in central Sweden, a country with a meagre flora compared to the Continent. There are only 6 or 7 native species of roses although there are many garden escapes like multiflora, rugosa, gallica, villosa and others. The most common in my area and north of Lake Malar in general is Rosa dumalis with Rosa canina more common south of this long lake. They are similar but the dumalis flowers are a little stronger pink. It's a very common wild rose around here and there are several in my garden, sown by birds. The photo is from across the street, on public land.

I've been actually doing some research on this for a while now. It's really hard to find roses here in the Philippines and even more so with species roses since people aren't familiar with what roses really look like in the wild. When you say "rose" or "rosas" here, people will only recognize modern, double-flowered roses. Botanical records have stated that species roses that were last spotted in the 90's were R. luciae (also known as R. philippinensis, and the species from which wichurana came) and R. transmorriensis Hayata (a.k.a. R. luzoniensis).

The former originally came from Japan while the latter is native to Taiwan. Both grow in Luzon and the latter is said to have grown in our mountainous regions.
HMF states Japanese records show that R. bracteata came from Cagayan River on Luzon to Japan around the 1800's so I guess R. bracteata is our native rose.

So far I haven't been to the mountains much to actually look out for those roses but one day I'll plan to see them growing in my country and maybe grow them in my garden. A thing to note is that all of these roses are white. Quite a coincidence. :D

This post was edited by Resolute_Noir on Wed, Dec 11, 13 at 7:17

I've forgotten the name of the little rose that grows wild here. it is most extremely thorny to keep the deer off with small leaves and very small dark pink single blooms.

This one grows wild up in Trinity County in No Cal - I have no idea who it is.

Jackie

This last one looks like the R. gymnocarpa shown in a previous post.
Nik

Jackie ......

I agree that your rose is probably R. gymnocarpa as it is native to Trinity County.

The foliage in your photo looks very much like the foliage in this photo on HMF.

Smiles,
Lyn

Here is a link that might be useful: R. gymnocarpa on HMF

I'm sure there is some species rose that grows wild in Michigan but I live in such an urban area that I've never encountered any. I would be curious to know what it is though if anyone out there can tell me.

Here's a fun tool, a plant database from the USDA with distribution maps. I pulled up all the plants on the USDA plants data base that are "rosa." Scroll down a ways - There are some pictures but also a map of the places in the US that a particular species is found. Gean

Here is a link that might be useful: USDA plant database - search

Whoops - all the data disappeared - just hit "go" in the search box on the top left where the word "rosa" is and all the info will reappear. Maybe.

Thanks Lyn - it does look like r. gymnorcarpa. Next summer I will take better pictures - there is a bush about a block from our cabin that is in full bloom in June (for about a week) - I will try to catch it, and also hips and buds.

Jackie