scale bar = 1cm.
Sweet Briar - introduced (*Rosa rubiginosa)
Other names: Briar Rose.
Family: Rosaceae (Rose family).
Native of Europe and Asia.
Occurrence: Widely distributed weed. It grows on farmland, roadsides and forest areas.
Identification:
- it grows to an open shrub, to several metres high
- the leaves have 5 to 7 toothed leaflets
- branches have sharp, down-turned prickles
- the flowers are pink with five showy petals
- the fruit (the hips) are a bright orange-red.
Sweet Briar is a proclaimed noxious weed and is listed as Regionally Controlled in central Victoria.
The seed may be spread by animals, or by water. The hips are a source of vitamin C.Photos 1: Sweet Briar with ripening hips. Hargraves St, Castlemaine.
2: Hips. Devils Kitchen. 3: Flowers. 4: Branch showing a divided leaf, the down-turned, sharp prickles, and the hips.
