Rosa cymosa

Elderflower Rose Rosaceae

An elegant Chinese rambler with a distinctly oriental character, forming a vigorous, evergreen to semi-evergreen climber with long, slender branches armed with scattered hooked prickles. The glossy leaflets are usually in threes or fives, and the numerous fragrant, white flowers are carried in broad, elderflower-like corymbs in early summer. The individual blooms are only 2–2.5 cm across, but produced in such abundance that a mature plant can be smothered in white. Tiny spherical hips follow, ripening from red through dark purple to almost black.

Native to southern, central and eastern China, Taiwan, Laos and Vietnam, where it grows in hills, open slopes, stream margins, scrub and roadsides, from low elevations to about 1800 m. In China it has a remarkably broad range, extending from Fujian and Guangdong northwards into Anhui and southern Shaanxi, and westwards through Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan. 

Nomenclature is unusually unsettled. Rosa cymosa was described by Leopold Trattinnick in 1823 in Rosarum Monographia 1: 87. Flora of China treats it as a distinct species and lists numerous later names as synonyms, including R. amoyensis, R. microcarpa, R. bodinieri, R. cavaleriei and R. sorbiflora.  Kew’s current World Checklist, however, sinks R. cymosa into the much broader Rosa indica L.; this is a taxonomic treatment rather than a universally accepted change, since major regional floras continue to recognise R. cymosa. 

• Hardiness: H5, -15 to -10°C
• Height: 2–5 m
• Spread: 2–4 m
• Flowers: May–June