A bush up to 8 ft in cultivation, of rather stiff habit, usually under 6 ft high in the wild, where it sometimes spreads by suckers and forms extensive stands; prickles scattered, slender, straight or slightly curved. Leaves 4 to 7 in. long; rachis glandular and downy. Leaflets five, seven or nine, 11⁄4 to 21⁄2 in. long, 3⁄4 to 11⁄2 in. wide, oval to oblong-ovate, bluish green above, hairy on both sides and often very densely furnished beneath with resin-scented glands, edged with compound-glandular teeth. Flowers solitary or in clusters of three, rarely more numerous, deep rosy pink, 11⁄2 to 21⁄2 in. across. Pedicels short, about as long as the receptacle, which, like the pedicels, is densely covered with glandular bristles. Sepals fleshy at the base, glandular on the back, long-tailed, not constricted at the base, with a few lateral appendages. Stylar aperture wide. Fruits dark red, more or less bristly, globose to pear-shaped, 1 to 11⁄2 in. long, surmounted by the erect sepals. Bot. Mag., t. 7241.
Native of central and southern Europe, Asia Minor and the Caucasus; long cultivated in the British Isles and occasionally escaping or occurring as a relic of former cultivation. It is a remarkable rose, and, when well grown, one of the most striking, especially in the fruits, which are dark red and very large – whence the old name ‘the apple-bearing rose’ (pomifera). The fruits were at one time used for making preserves and it was even specially planted to supply them for that purpose.
R. ‘Wolley-Dod’. – Near to R. villosa but probably a hybrid. The large, semi-double flowers are clear pink, beautifully set off by the grey-green leaves. The fruits are smaller than in R. villosa and less freely borne. It is figured in Willmott, The Genus Rosa, from a plant in the garden of the Rev. Wolley-Dod at Edge Hall, Cheshire.
R. mollis Sm. R. villosa of some authors; R. villosa var. mollis (Sm.) Crép.; R. villosa subsp. mollis (Sm.) Keller & Gams – This species agrees with R. villosa in all essential characters, but the leaflets are smaller, to about 11⁄2 in. long, the pedicels and receptacles less bristly and the fruits smaller (to about 7⁄8 in. long). Another point of distinction sometimes given is that the young stems have a pruinose bloom, which is said not to be the case in R. villosa.
R. mollis has much the same distribution as R. villosa except that it extends farther north, reaching the British Isles, where it is commonest in Scotland. So far as gardens are concerned it is an inferior substitute for R. villosa.