How it works
These are the parts of a rose as rose growers name them: a grafted rose bush from its roots to its bloom, and a single open rose from above. Start with the 7 main parts.
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The bush
Most garden roses are grafted: the variety grows from a bud union, the knob at the soil line, on a tough rootstock. Canes rise from it, set with prickles. Each leaf is divided into leaflets, with stipules at its base. A spent flower leaves a hip, the fruit.
The flower
Green sepals wrap the bud, then open to show the petals. In the centre a ring of stamens makes pollen round the pistils, whose ovary becomes the hip. Each bloom sits on a peduncle.
- Rose growers say prickles, not thorns: a prickle is part of the cane's skin and snaps off, while a true thorn is a modified branch.
Questions and answers
Do roses have thorns or prickles?
Prickles. A thorn is a modified branch rooted deep in the wood, as on a hawthorn. A rose's spikes are hard outgrowths of the cane's skin, so the American Rose Society calls them prickles.
What is a rose hip?
The fruit of the rose. It forms from the flower once the petals fall, and holds the seeds.
What is the bud union on a rose?
The knobby joint where the chosen variety was grafted onto the rootstock. It is the weak point of a grafted rose, so in cold places it is buried below the soil.