A shrub 6 to 10 ft high; stems and branches armed with light-coloured, hooked spines. Leaflets usually seven or nine, 3⁄8 to 11⁄4 in. long, oval to slightly obovate, grey-green and glabrous above, usually glandular and sometimes downy beneath, edged with ten to twenty simple or compound teeth. Flower-buds elongate, acute. Flowers white, 1 to 11⁄2 in. across, in clusters of nine or more, produced from midsummer onwards at the ends of the new shoots. Pedicels slender, to about 1 in. long, glabrous or downy, sometimes glandular. Fruits globose, smooth, red at first, finally purplish, 1⁄4 to 3⁄8 in. long, sepals at length falling away together with the top of the receptacle.
Native of Central and S.W. Asia (including Asiatic Turkey); introduced about 1881. It is a variable species, of which one botanist described or recognised fifty varieties. The cultivated form is of some value for its greyish leaves with a sweet brier fragrance, but the flowers are unpleasantly scented. For the fruits see further under R. gymnocarpa.