A shrub 4 to 6 ft high, usually quite unarmed except for a few slender scattered prickles near the base of vigorous stems; when, rarely, prickles occur on the branches they are sparse and straight, and do not occur in nodal pairs. Leaflets usually five or seven, elliptic or oblong-obovate, 3⁄4 to 21⁄4 in. long, dull green, glabrous on both sides or downy beneath, edged with eglandular, usually simple teeth. Stipules widening upwards, entire or somewhat toothed, downy or glabrous. Flowers solitary or in clusters of three to seven, 13⁄4 to 21⁄2 in. wide, rosy pink, opening in late May or early June. Pedicels and receptacle glabrous. Sepals lanceolate, entire, 1⁄2 to 2 in. long, sometimes glandular. Fruits globose or broadest slightly above or below the middle, red, crowned by the erect sepals.
Native of eastern and central N. America; in cultivation 1773. A handsome rose, allied to the Old World R. majalis (cinnamomea), which flowers at about the same time. But in that species the prickles are more numerous and hooked, and occur in nodal pairs.
R. blanda has been used in the United States to breed thornless roses, either as ornamentals or for root-stocks. A presumed hybrid between R. blanda and R. chinensis was described in 1902 from the Forstgarten, Hannover-Münden (R. × aschersoniana Graebn.).
R. × michiganensis Erlanson – A probable hybrid between R. blanda and R. palustris, showing the influence of the latter in the coarse, erect habit, the presence of prickles on the stems, the more finely toothed leaflets and spreading sepals. It was described from the region of the Great Lakes.
R. woodsii Lindl. R. fendleri Crép.; R. woodsii var. fendleri Rydb.; R. macounii Greene – Allied to R. blanda, but with a more westerly distribution, from N.W. Canada south to Texas, east to around the 100th meridian. It is dwarfer, to about 4 ft, of stiff habit, rather more strongly armed, the prickles straight, paired at the nodes, often extending onto the flowering branchlets. Leaflets smaller than in R. blanda, to little more than 1 in. long, obovate to elliptic, the teeth often glandular. Sepals usually without glands on the back. Fruits smaller, to about 3⁄8 in. wide. The var. ultramontana (S. Wats.) Jeps. is taller and laxer, with larger, always simply toothed leaflets.
R. woodsii was described by Lindley in 1820 from a cultivated plant supposed to have come from the Missouri river. As seen in cultivation, under the name R. woodsii var. fendleri, this is one of the prettiest of American roses, with foliage not unlike that of R. pimpinellifolia but grey green, bearing its flowers on short, closely set laterals.
R. woodsii and R. blanda overlap in distribution and produce fertile hybrids. For these the correct name would appear to be R. × dulcissima Lunell emend. W. H. Lewis; see Brittonia, Vol. 14 (1962), pp. 65-71, where the differences between the two species are discussed.