A dwarf, compact bush 1 to 2 ft high, of rounded form, armed with numerous strongly curved or hooked prickles usually intermixed with glandular bristles and needles. Leaves 1 to 2 in. long, with five or seven leaflets, which are elliptic or roundish, 1⁄4 to 3⁄4 in. long, coarsely but evenly compound-toothed, the teeth, rachis, stipules, and undersurface copiously glandular. Flowers white, solitary or two or three together. Pedicels very short, glandular. Sepals pinnately lobed, glandular-toothed and ciliate. Fruits roundish, red, about 1⁄2 in. wide, smooth or with a few short needles or bristles, devoid of sepals.
Native of S.W. Russia, Asia Minor, and the Balkans. This interesting and pretty little rose forms a dense mass of interlacing, very spiny twigs. It is allied to R. pulverulenta (glutinosa) but has coarser, mostly hooked prickles nearly always mixed with bristles and needles, white flowers and smaller fruits; also, although glandular it is not strongly aromatic like that species. Its armature distinguishes it from R. sicula, in which needles and bristles are lacking and the whole plant less glandular.