WILD ROSES

WILD ROSES

There are numerous varieties of ‘wild roses’ in the Uk but they all have the one thing in common, their beautyand the fact that are my favourite. From crisp white in colour to pastel pink right through to purple these beautiful flowers can be found growing in most areas of the UK. Happily growing in hedgerows, woodlands and scrubland the sight and scent of these colourful plants always puts a smile on my face. Although there are may different varieties of wild rose it is very hard to identify which species is which as they can look so similar, even the differing colour of their flowers does not mean they are differing species. The most common rose though is the ‘Dog Rose’ with its pale pink flowers.

I believe that all the varieties of wild roses produce rose hips, the bright red, oval berry like fruits that we used to break open, when we were kids, and stuff down the necks of our friends to irritate their skin and make them itch, or was that just a mischievous younger version of me. The hips are said to be high in vitamin C and are used, in the foraging community, to make a sweet syrup for cooking purposes or turned into an oil for skincare use.

Wild rose flowers are an important source of nectar for insects and the fruits they produce are a good food source for birds found around scrubland. The stems of the plants are laden with nasty thorns which latch onto anything that touches them easily which in turn means that only the smallest, nibblest of birds can feast of the fruits.

Most of the roses, in the pictures above, were growing within the same country park, in fact some were only growing a few meters apart. Some of the flowers are your more traditional looking petal shapes but some, as you can see, have a delicate crinkly look to the edges of the petals.

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