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All species Plant profile

Burnet Rose

Rosa spinosissima

Burnet Rose shows many slender prickles, pale five-petaled flowers, dark rounded hips, plus range context, ecology, soil notes, and field marks for careful identification.

  • many slender prickles
  • Europe, northern Africa, and temperate Asia, with introduced records in parts of North America
  • soil and habitat clues
  • cautionary context only
Burnet Rose showing field marks for identification.
Image: Eirian Evans  · CC BY-SA 2.0

At a glance

  • TypeShrub
  • RangeEurope, northern Africa, and temperate Asia, with introduced records in parts of North America
  • SizeLow shrub, often under 1 m
  • Field marksmany slender prickles, pale five-petaled flowers, dark rounded hips
  • Seasonlate spring flowers; dark autumn hips
Range & community finds

Where it grows in the wild

The map combines cited native or introduced range layers with reported public biodiversity observations.12

Field marks

How to recognize it

Look for many slender prickles, pale five-petaled flowers, dark rounded hips before relying on one clue.

Many Slender Prickles

Many Slender Prickles is one practical field mark to photograph when checking Burnet Rose in context.

Pale Five-Petaled Flowers

Pale Five-Petaled Flowers is one practical field mark to photograph when checking Burnet Rose in context.

Dark Rounded Hips

Dark Rounded Hips is one practical field mark to photograph when checking Burnet Rose in context.

Don't mix it up

Lookalikes & how to tell them apart

Compare Burnet Rose with nearby plants that share shape, habitat, color, or family traits.

Prairie rose

Use multiple field marks together. Compare leaf shape, flower form, size, season, and setting before relying on a single similarity.

Other wild roses

Use multiple field marks together. Compare leaf shape, flower form, size, season, and setting before relying on a single similarity.

The story

A spiny rose holding sandy ground

Burnet Rose first asks for a close look. Notice many slender prickles, then check pale five-petaled flowers and dark rounded hips before the setting blurs into background. The plant becomes clearer when the field mark and the place are seen together: leaf, flower, stem, soil, light, and the edge where it is growing.

The first public record behind this page came from a community discovery on 2026-07-02. That record gives the profile a real starting point without turning the plant into a private location. It points to a subject worth studying with care, especially because Burnet Rose can be confused with plants that share color, family, habitat, or growth form.

Burnet Rose is a very spiny rose of lean ground, with pale flowers followed by dark purple to black hips. That is the simple line to carry outside. The deeper story is that spiny coastal rose that binds poor sandy ground with flowers and dark hips. A field guide can list parts, but the living plant is doing something in a place. It is holding a patch, climbing toward light, feeding visitors, storing water, or waiting through a season until the right signal appears.

Range adds another clue. The cited distribution records place Burnet Rose in Europe, northern Africa, and temperate Asia, with introduced records in parts of North America. The map on this page separates recorded observations from the broader range context, so the dots do not pretend to be the whole story. A plant can be common in cultivation, rare in the wild, locally abundant, or scattered far from its original home.

Identification should move slowly. Look for many slender prickles, compare pale five-petaled flowers, and photograph dark rounded hips with the whole plant nearby. A close image is useful, but a wider image often explains scale, soil, shade, water, bark, wall, path, pot, meadow, or forest edge. Those ordinary surroundings can keep a guess honest.

The soil or substrate matters here. Burnet Rose is not only a shape above ground. Its roots, rhizomes, host tissues, trunk base, or lower stems meet the surface that feeds and steadies it. Leaf litter, sand, disturbed soil, wet ground, bark, or potting mix can show how the plant holds its place while weather and season change around it.

Human attention adds another layer, but caution keeps it useful. Rose hip and prickle notes are natural-history context only; this page gives no foraging, preparation, or handling advice. That boundary lets the page mention history, garden use, scent, sap, fruit, or folklore without turning a species profile into instructions. The safest reader action is observation: look, photograph, compare, and leave uncertain plants alone.

Burnet Rose can grow in sandy or rocky places and later carries dark hips after its pale flowers fade. In the field, that fact works best when it sends the eye back to the plant. Watch how the visible parts fit the role. Are the flowers signaling to insects or birds? Are the leaves storing water or catching light? Is the stem climbing, sprawling, bristling, or standing firm through wind?

Season changes the answer. late spring flowers and dark autumn hips may show different sides of the same plant. A flower can vanish while leaves remain. A fruit can explain what a bloom was doing weeks earlier. A dry stem can mark where summer growth once stood.

For a useful observation, photograph Burnet Rose in three steps: the whole plant in its setting, one close field mark, and the ground or substrate at its base. Then compare the lookalikes rather than naming from memory. The point is not speed. The point is to let one plant reveal how much is happening in a small patch of living ground.

Ecology

Its place in the ecological web

Burnet Rose acts as spiny coastal rose that binds poor sandy ground with flowers and dark hips, linking visible field marks with soil, season, and other organisms.

Soil & substrate

Soil & substrate

Burnet Rose is best read with its substrate in view. Soil, litter, bark, sand, potting mix, or disturbed ground helps explain where the plant holds, climbs, stores, or flowers in the local habitat.3

Sandy-ground shrub

Sandy-ground shrub

Sandy-ground shrub is part of how Burnet Rose fits into a larger living scene rather than standing as an isolated label.36

Bird fruit resource

Bird fruit resource

Bird fruit resource connects Burnet Rose with season, shelter, movement, or food-web timing described in the sources.36

Timing

When to look

Seasonal timing helps readers know when Burnet Rose is easiest to recognize: late spring flowers, dark autumn hips may each carry a different clue.3

Leaves
Flowers
  • Peak bloom
  • Fading & dried heads
  • Leaves out
In Leafari

Found one? Keep a field journal

Save this species to your journal, earn its badge, and see community discoveries on an approximate, privacy-safe map.

  1. 1Photograph the whole Burnet Rose plant in its setting.
  2. 2Add a close view of many slender prickles.
  3. 3Record soil, moisture, shade, edge, garden, woodland, or disturbed-ground context.
  4. 4Compare lookalikes before relying on one feature.
Burnet Rose badge art from the app.

Burnet Rose Badge

Earned when you identify this species in Leafari.

In the Leafari community

1Total finds logged
1Explorers journaled it

First found in England, United Kingdom, by Mystic-Healer-2

References

Sources

Key facts and claims trace back to a named reference. Superscript numbers in the text link here.

  1. WCVP distribution records via GBIF: Rosa spinosissima Taxonomy and range source checked
  2. Global biodiversity occurrence record: Rosa spinosissima Distribution observations and taxon key
  3. POWO taxon record: Rosa spinosissima Natural-history and range reference
  4. Wikimedia Commons hero image Hero image
  5. Wikimedia Commons supporting image Supporting image
  6. Community discovery records Product snapshot, first found, fun facts, badge, community discovery