ROSA LAEVIGATA Michaux. Cherokee rose

A climbing rose with stems to 10m or more, with hooked thorns and bristles. Leaves evergreen; leaflets 3, lanceolate on the long shoots to ovate or nearly round on flowering shoots , short-stalked, with fine, curved teeth, smooth and shining above and beneath, the rhachis withoout thorns. Stipules narrow, toothed and glandular, free or only attached to the base of the stalk, soon falling. Pedicels bristly. Flowers white, solitary, up to 10cm across, well-scented. Styles shortly exserted. Hips large and bristly, 3.5-4cm long, orange-red, with persistent bristly sepals.

In rocky places, sometimes grazed to form a compact bush. Native of much of central China, westwards to Sichuan, and Taiwan at up to 1000m; naturalised in Japan. The first description, by Michaux in Flora Boreali Americana 1803, considered it a native American plant.

This beautiful, white-flowered rose is not very hardy, and is killed to the ground in cold winters in southern England, and flowers only in hot summers. In southern France, along the Riviera and from Georgia southwards, it grows and flowers well. Damaged by temperatures below 15°F (-10°C), zones 8 – 10.