Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Rosa rubiginosa
Common name
Sweet briar, Eglantine
Family
Rosaceae
Where found
Bushland, woodland, hedgerows, grassy areas, roadsides, waste areas, gullies, and along streams. Widespread. Rarely coastal south of Wollongong.
Notes
Introduced shrub, deciduous in colder areas, to 3 m tall, erect, arching, or scrambling, sometimes climbing. Stems with prickles 10-15 mm long. Prickly leaf and flower stalks. Leaf margins sharply toothed. Fruit fleshy, not edible. Stems smooth when young, sometimes sticky hairy, becoming rough and woody as they mature. The crushed foliage has a sweet apple-like smell. Leaves alternating up the stems, compound, with 5–9 leaflets, each 0.8–4 cm long, 5–28 mm wide, upper surface hairless or hairy, lower surface usually with a mixture of simple and glandular hairs, tips rounded. A pair of glandular leaflike stipules at the base of each leaf. Flowers pink to white, sweetly scented, 20–50 mm in diameter, with 5 petals, on stalks covered in sticky hairs and fine prickles. Flowers single or in few-flowered clusters. Flowers Spring-Summer. Fruit orange or red to almost black, 15–20 mm long, oval or oval, hairless, prickles absent or with a few bristles or small spines near the base.
General Biosecurity Duty all NSW. Pest plant ACT. Noxious weed Vic.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Rosa~rubiginosa (accessed 5 February, 2021)
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