| A close-up of the hips. |
The red flesh is sticky inside the hip - and nutritious, as are all rose hips, being high in vitamin C. Rose hips have been used for centuries to make jellies, etc.
Inside each hip are two or three small, curved, hard seeds. These have a long afterlife, remaining viable in the soil for ten or twenty years. Once soil temperatures have risen above 60º F; (15º C), they germinate readily.
Three native roses that resemble the multiflora are:
- Rosa setigera, the prairie rose, which has longer, trailing and arching stems with larger pyramids of white flowers and smaller fruit.
- Rosa arkansana, the dwarf prairie rose, whose stems are thickly covered with slender, straight prickles. It's also shorter that the multiflora rose, reaching about thirty-nine inches (1 m).
- Rosa palustris, the swamp rose, which is shorter, about six feet (2 m) tall and has solitary flowers.
Other "wild" roses found in various parts of the US include:
- Rosa virginiana, (Virginia rose) broadly winged stipules; stout, curved thorns,
- Rosa carolina, (pasture rose) narrow, winged-victory stipules,
- Rosa nitida,
- Rosa blanda, (smooth rose) very narrow stipules; upper stems at most w a few weak prickles;
- Rosa gymnocarpa,
- Rosa foliolosa,
- Rosa laevigata or Cherokee rose (naturalized; native to Asia),
- Rosa gigantea (naturalized; native to Asia).
I've pulled and dug countless multiflora roses while clearing my woods. Some were easy to pull, while the more established plants required a fair amount of excavation to uncover their rust colored roots and sever them.
Attacking a huge mass of very wild and prickly stems can be a daunting task. The best and least painful approach is to grasp - with heavily gloved hand - the most accessible branches and clip them off as far along them as you can reach. Keep grabbing and clipping until you've cleared a way to the inside of the shrub so that you can get at the main stems near the ground. Sever these, leaving a short bit for a handle.
Next, start digging next to the crown until you uncover a root. Sever this - you may need a saw, if it's an old plant as roots can get quite large. Once you've gotten most of the larger roots, you can grab your stem stump handle and start rocking the plant. This will loosen it as well as show you where it is still connected. Keep this up until you have either severed all roots or the plant comes up with a mighty tug.
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