Rosa graciliflora (slender stalked rose)

Native to China (Sichuan, Xizang (Tibet), Yunnan), where it has been found between 3,300 and 4,500 m.

A small, erect shrub with slender branchlets, growing up to 4 m tall. The sparse, fine prickles are up to 1 cm long and flare abruptly into a broad base. The leaves are 5-8 cm long and bear stipules (leaf-like appendages) that are fused with the petiole (leaf stalk). Each leaf is formed of 9-11 leaflets with toothed margins. The flowers are solitary, 2.5-3.5 cm in diameter, and have five entire (undivided), leaf-like sepals and five pink or deep red petals. The flowers have a spicy scent. The fruit is a red hip of 2-3 cm with persistent erect sepals. Hips are the characteristic fruit of the genus Rosa, scientifically called a pometum, and consist of a swollen hypanthium closed at the mouth and containing free achenes with their styles and stigmas protruding.

Hips are the characteristic fruit of the genus Rosa. Images above: Left – an immature hip with stigmas protruding; Middle - section of an immature hip with ovules visible; Right – an immature hip (Images: RBG Kew, Living collection Virtual Herbarium)

Herbarium specimen of Rosa graciliflora collected by Tony Kirkham in China, 2001 (Image: RBG Kew)

Rose cultivation began in ancient Babylonia and Assyria and was passed on through later civilisations to Europe. Roses were grown for their beauty and scent, to infuse rose-water and rose-oil, and later for medicinal and horticultural purposes.

Although Saint Valentine’s Day has been celebrated in some form since 500 AD, and roses have been identified with love since the ancient Greeks and Romans, it was not until the second half of the 20th Century that the giving of gifts such as roses on 14 February became common practice.

The traditional Valentine’s verse ‘Roses are red’ can be traced back to:

She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew,
And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew.

The Faerie Queene (1590) – Edmund Spenser

The rose is red, the violet's blue
The honey's sweet, and so are you
Thou are my love and I am thine
I drew thee to my Valentine
The lot was cast and then I drew
And Fortune said it shou'd be you.

Gammer Gurton's Garland (1784)

Rosa graciliflora is one of more than 1,000 plant species collected in China at the beginning of the 20th Century by Ernest “Chinese” Wilson (1876-1930).  It is occasionally planted as an ornamental shrub, and has been grown at Kew from seeds collected in Sichuan by Tony Kirkham, Kew’s Arboretum Manager.

Rosa graciliflora stem (Image: RBG Kew)

In March, the roses cultivated at Kew are pruned back into a framework with all the old, dead, diseased and damaged wood removed. A granular fertiliser is then applied to the rose beds to help to promote healthy new growth after pruning. The beds are mulched at this time of year, using farmyard manure, doubling up as mulch and fertiliser.

April sees the first foliage feed application, containing a high potassium content to increase flower production. At the same time, a programme of pesticide and fungicide spraying is started and performed throughout the growing season whenever pests and diseases begin to show, such as black spot, mildew, aphids and thrips.

At the end of autumn the roses are cut back by approximately one-third to reduce wind rock. 

Rose pergola at Kew Gardens (Image: Catherine Rutherford)

Rosa graciliflora is grown in the area between the Palm House and Victoria Gate, and between the Temple of Aeolus and Museum No. 1. It is also grown in the behind-the-scenes Arboretum Nursery.

Where to see roses at Kew.

Search Kew's databases for more information on this species

Find out more about garden roses on Kew’s website

Buy pink glass rose earrings from the Kew Shop.

The Rose Garden at Kew

Tropical Extravaganza 2011 – Valentine’s Dinner

Ernest Wilson Memorial Garden