Rose Family

Rosaceae (ro-ZAY-see-ee)

Iconic Features

• Leaves generally serrate and alternate
• Usually 5 separate petals and sepals
• Flower with numerous stamens and pistils
• Sepals, petals, and stamens fused at base into a cup-like structure (hypanthium)

Description (Jepson)

• Eudicotyledons (eudicots) – a major lineage of flowering plants including most plants traditionally described as dicots and generally characterized by
  • 2 seed leaves (dicotyledon)
  • Netted (reticulate) leaf venation
  • Flower parts in fours and fives
  • Pollen grains with 3 pores (tricolpate)
  • Vascular bundles in stem arranged in a ring
  • Taproot system
• Herbaceous annuals and perennials, shrubs and small trees
• Leaves
  • Simple (not divided into leaflets) or compound (divided into leaflets)
  • Often with serrated edges
  • Generally alternate (1 leaf at each junction with stem)
  • Often with stipules (pair of leaf-like structures at the base of the leaf stalk)
• Flowers
  • Usually bisexual and radially symmetric, e.g. blackberry flower
  • Usually with 5 sepals (usually green, outer flower parts) and 5 petals, freely attached to a shallow cup (hypanthium)
  • Numerous stamens (male flower parts)
  • Ovary superior (above the attachment of other flower parts) to inferior (below the attachment of other flower parts)
• Fruit in many kinds, including an achene (a single-seeded, dry fruit that does not split open), an aggregate of achenes, or a drupe (a fleshy fruit with usually 1 seed in a hard inner shell — a stone fruit)

Notes

• Approximately 3,000 species worldwide
  • Includes roses, chamise, holly-leaved cherry, ocean spray, toyon, and many commonly-eaten fruits, such as plums, apples, and raspberries
• Many of the fruits eaten by Native people were members of the Rose family, e.g. blackberries, strawberries, cherries, and toyon
  • Bushes and tress were actively managed by pruning and burning, stimulating many positive effects (Anderson 2005)
    • Vigorous and straighter shoots
    • Larger and more numerous fruits 
    • Less congested canopies
    • Reduced insect infestations 
• Robert Frost wrote a poem titled “The Rose Family” (Frost 1928)
• Scientific name from the included genus Rosa, from the Latin for the plant
• Represented by 22 species at Edgewood

Specific References

Anderson, M.K. 2005. Tending the Wild. University of California, Berkeley. Pp. 274-280.

Frost, R. 1928. “The Rose Family.” West-Running Brook. American Poems.

General References

Calflora Database. 2014. Berkeley, California.

Calscape. 2018. California Native Plant Society.

Charters, M.L. 2015. California Plant Names: Latin and Greek Meanings and Derivations.

Charters, M.L. 2017. Southern California Wildflowers: Guide to the Pronunciation of Specific, Generic and Family Names.

Corelli, T. 2004. Flowering Plants of Edgewood Natural Preserve (2nd. ed.). Monocot Press, Half Moon Bay, California.

Elpel, T.J. 2013. Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification. HOPS Press, Pony, Montana.

Flora of North America. efloras.org.

Harris, J.G., and M.W. Harris. 2013. Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary. Spring Lake Publishing, Spring Lake, Utah.

Keator, G. 2009. California Plant Families. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California.

Native American Ethnobotany DB.

Regents of the University of California. Jepson eFlora. Jepson Herbarium. University of California, Berkeley.

Browse Some Edgewood Plants in this Family