Rosa pimpinellifolia Seeds | Burnet Rose
LATIN NAME: Rosa pimpinellifolia
COMMON NAME: Burnet Rose
Plant Profile
The burnet rose is a low, suckering shrub of sixty centimetres to a metre, with stems so densely covered in straight spines that it is hard to handle, small fern-like leaves and single cream-white flowers in late spring. The hips that follow are round and almost black.
It grows on sand dunes and limestone grassland along the coasts of Europe and North Africa, and in Britain it is a plant of the fixed dunes behind the beach. It spreads by underground runners and forms thickets that hold the sand in place through winter gales. The young stems are reddish and the spines are unequal in length, which gives the thicket a bristly look in winter.
Science & Biotechnology
The species is the parent of the Scots roses, a group bred in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from plants collected in Scotland and Scandinavia. Those roses carry the burnet rose’s hardiness and its fine foliage, and they were grown in cottage gardens before the repeat-flowering hybrids arrived.
Its hips are among the richest in vitamin C of any European rose, and the seeds inside contain a small amount of a toxic glycoside that is destroyed by cooking. The plant also suckers so freely that a single seedling can cover several square metres in a decade, which is a virtue on a dune and a nuisance in a border.
Uses & Benefits
The plant is grown in rock gardens, on banks and in wild gardens, where its early flower and its autumn hips are the attraction. It is one of the best roses for a poor, dry, sandy site, and it is useful as a low hedge where the spines will keep out rabbits.
The hips are used for syrup and for jam in the same way as dog rose hips, and the petals are used in pot-pourri. The root bark gives a yellow dye, and the plant was used in country medicine as an astringent. It is not a cut flower, since the stems are woody and the flowers shatter.
Growing from Seed
Sow the seed in autumn and leave the pot outside; germination is often delayed until the second spring, since rose seed has a hard coat and a dormant embryo. A period of warm followed by cold gives the best result.
Plant out in full sun on any poor soil that drains, and give it room to sucker, since it will travel. Cut out the oldest stems every few years to keep the thicket young. Do not plant it in a rich border or among small alpines, which it will overrun within two seasons. The plant also tolerates salt wind, which is why it grows along the coast in the first place.
Our Take
A tough, spiny, early-flowering rose for a sand bank or a wild corner, and the ancestor of the Scots roses. Plant it where it can spread.
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