From an email by Jocie to the Botany group on March 6.
Before the spring growing season explodes, take a moment to check out some colourful rose hips! [Click a photo to enlarge it.]
Our native Nootka rose (Rosa nutkana) has nice round red hips all through the winter months. These are a high source of vitamin C, so it’s OK to nibble the hips. However, beware of the large, coarsely hairy seeds that aren’t very palatable.
The dog rose (Rosa canina complex), is a similar looking, pink-blooming rose from Europe, with oval-shaped hips that typically taper at each end.
Dog roses often have golf-ball-sized galls known as the mossy rose gall or “robin’s pincushion,” caused by the larvae of a certain gall wasp. Here’s a bit of information that I found about mossy rose galls on the website of The Wildlife Trusts in the UK:
The Robin’s pincushion (also known as the ‘Bedeguar Gall’) is a gall caused by the larvae of a tiny gall wasp, Diplolepis rosae. The gall is widespread and common, and can be found developing on the stems of Dog-roses during late summer; it acquires its reddish colour as it matures in autumn. Each gall holds many grubs, which feed on the gall tissues throughout the winter and emerge in spring as adults. Only a tiny number of adults are male.
Dog rose and another European species, sweetbriar (Rosa rubiginosa), are tricky to tell apart without examining leaf details. Both of these species have curved, downward pointing spines.