A bush with spreading branches armed with scattered slender prickles. Leaves with three or five leaflets – the latter on the young barren shoots of the first year. Leaflets ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 11⁄2 to 3 in. long, very finely and simply toothed, glabrous on both surfaces, dark green above, pale beneath. Stipules narrow, edged with glandular teeth or glandular ciliations. Flowers blush-white, 1 to 11⁄2 in. across, in loose corymbs, double, the inner ‘petals’ (modified stamens) narrow and ragged. Pedicels slender, naked, or with a few glandular bristles. Styles united into a slender, hairy column.
This rose was introduced from China in 1844, by Fortune, who found it in a garden at Shanghai. Plants with single flowers have been found in Fokien province, but whether these were genuinely wild is uncertain. R. anemoniflora is thought by some authorities to be a hybrid between R. multiflora and R. laevigata, and also shows some resemblance to R. banksiae. But in its essential characters it is a member of the Synstylae. It is a curious and rather pretty rose, but not very hardy.