- Scientific name: Rosa acicularis Lindl. subsp. sayi (Schwein.) W.H. Lewis
- Species of Greatest Conservation Need (MA State Wildlife Action Plan)
- Endangered (MA Endangered Species Act)
Description
Photo Credit: Peter Dziuk, MinnesotaWildflowers.info
The northern prickly rose is a low, few-stemmed shrub in the rose family (Rosaceae). It usually—and, in our area, always—grows less than 1 m (3.3 ft) tall. Its stems and branchlets are covered with numerous straight, very slender bristles that are 3-4 mm (0.1-0.15 in.) long. The compound leaves are alternate, with 5 to 7 (usually 5) leaflets. A pair of conspicuous stipules (vegetative appendages associated with leaves) occurs at the base of the leaf stalks (petioles); the upper petioles, the margins of the stipules, the rachis of the leaf, and floral bracts are “stipitate glandular”, having small glands at the tips of short hairs. Northern prickly rose’s 1.5-4.5 cm (0.6–1.8 in) long leaflets are thin, serrate (with forward-facing teeth), and oblong-elliptic. Their surfaces are dull green above and paler green and minutely downy below.
Flowers are generally solitary but may occur in groups of 2, or rarely 3, at the end of leafy side branches from stems of the previous year. The pink petals are 1.5-3 cm (0.6-1.2 in) long and nearly as wide. The sepals (members of the outermost floral whorl) are glandular on the outside and often white and hairy inside. Its fruit (a "hip") is ellipsoid, often narrowly so, 2 cm (0.8 in) long, bright red, and many-seeded. The sepals become erect in fruit.
Northern prickly rose could be confused with the pasture or Carolina rose (Rosa carolina). However, pasture rose's prickles are paired at the stem/leaf nodes and are only scattered in between and are often of different sizes and shapes on the same plant, while bristles on northern prickly rose are all of a similar shape. In addition, pasture rose’s hips are globular, not elliptical. Like the northern prickly rose, the bog or shining rose (Rosa nitida) has slender prickles; in contrast, however, its fruits are globular, and it inhabits peat bogs and cold swamps. Northern prickly rose grows in thickets and on rocky slopes. The northern prickly rose is unique in Massachusetts in having distinctly elliptical hips; all our other roses have globular or somewhat pear-shaped hips.
Photo credit: Peter Dziuk, MinnesotaWildflowers.info
Close-up of stipules on leaf stem, Photo credit: Peter Dziuk, MinnesotaWildflowers.info
Life cycle and behavior
Northern prickly rose is a perennial shrub that spreads by underground rhizomes with many stems occurring from the same plant. It flowers from early June to mid-July. Its fruit, an elongate hip, ripens in late summer to early fall.
Population status
In 1984, northern prickly rose was rediscovered in Massachusetts—after a lapse of 65 years. It is currently listed under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act as Endangered. All listed species are protected from killing, collecting, possessing, or sale and from activities that would destroy habitat and thus directly or indirectly cause mortality or disrupt critical behaviors.
Massachusetts Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program database has 2 records from 1 county (Berkshire). Only one of those populations has been observed since 2000.
Distribution in Massachusetts
1999-2024
Based on records in the Natural Heritage Database
Distribution and abundance
Rosa acicularis is a circumpolar species. In North America, the documented range of the Rosa acicularis ssp. sayi extends from Nova Scotia and Quebec to Alaska, south to Massachusetts, Iowa, and northern New Mexico. A disjunct population occurs in West Virginia, where it is considered Endangered. In the northeast, the subspecies is at the southeastern edge of its range: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont all rank it as Endangered. It is potentially extirpated from Maine and the Canadian province of Nunavut.
Habitat
In New England, northern prickly rose's habitats are thickets and rocky slopes. Hop-hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana) is a consistent associated species throughout New England. In Massachusetts, the sole current station of northern prickly rose is an open, dolomitic limestone ledge at high elevation. Associated species at this site include shrubby cinquefoil (Dasiphora floribunda), choke cherry (Prunus virginiana), round-leaf dogwood (Cornus rugosa), various species of goldenrod (Solidago spp.). A historical station in Massachusetts was near a mountain summit.
Healthy habitats are vital for supporting native wildlife and plants. Explore habitats and learn about conservation and restoration in Massachusetts.
Threats
In some years, plants at the current Massachusetts site have been observed to be heavily browsed, preventing plants from growing over 12 inches in height and limiting fruiting to inaccessible portions of the plants. However, the plants reproduce vegetatively as well as by seed. Young plants are rarely observed and could be much more impacted by deer browse. Invasive plants, such as common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica), Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii) and Morrow’s honeysuckle (Lonicera morrowii) as well as more common species such as bush honeysuckle (Diervilla lonicera) could out-compete this low growing rose. Although Massachusetts is at the southeastern extent of the population, it is not known if climate change, particularly increased temperatures during the summer months, is negatively impacting this species. Given that this is a small, isolated population, inbreeding may make the plants less able to adjust to changes in their environment. Additional threats include gall infestations, canopy closure, and human impacts (trampling and logging).
Prickly stems, Photo credit: Arthur Haines, Native Plant Trust
Elongate fruit, Photo credit: Chris Buelow
Conservation
Survey and monitoring
Sites should be monitored every three to five years for threats from browsing and for invasions of exotic plants. When monitoring the species, please record number of ramets, whether or not there are flowers or fruit observed on existing shrubs and if there are young plants in the area growing away from one of the larger clumps. The best time to survey is when plants are in bloom or in fruit, from June through September.
Management
If declines are apparent or exotic plants are crowding and out-competing this species, a plan should be developed, in consultation with the MassWildlife’s Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program, to protect the plants or remove the invaders. All active management of rare plant populations (including invasive species removal) is subject to review under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act and should be planned in close consultation with the Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program.
Research needs
Very few seedlings have been reported from surveys. It is not known if the deer browse has been too heavy and does not allow the seedlings to become established or if the fruits do not contain viable seeds. If seeds of this species are collected for long-term preservation in a seed bank, the viability of seeds in each population should be checked. The seedlings generated from the viability checks should be head-started then planted back to their original population, or to an appropriate area that is within a kilometer so that pollinators may cross-pollinate between the populations.
References
Gleason, Henry A., and Arthur Cronquist. 1991. Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada, Second Edition. Bronx, NY: The New York Botanical Garden.
Haines, A. 2011. Flora Novae Angliae – a Manual for the Identification of Native and Naturalized Higher Vascular Plants of New England. New England Wildflower Society, Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, CT.
NatureServe. 2026. NatureServe Network Biodiversity Location Data accessed through NatureServe Explorer [web application]. NatureServe, Arlington, Virginia. Available https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.156883/Rosa_acicularis_ssp_sayi . Accessed: 3/23/2026.
POWO (2026). Plants of the World Online. Facilitated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Published on the Internet; https://powo.science.kew.org/ Accessed: 3/23/2026.
Schori, A. 2003. Rosa acicularis ssp. sayi (Bristly, Needle-spine, or Prickly Rose) Conservation and Research Plan for New England. New England Wild Flower Society, Framingham, MA.
Staudinger, M.D., A.V. Karmalkar, K. Terwilliger, K. Burgio, A. Lubeck, H. Higgins, T. Rice, T.L. Morelli, A. D'Amato. 2024. A regional synthesis of climate data to inform the 2025 State Wildlife Action Plans in the Northeast U.S. DOI Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center Cooperator Report. 406 p. https://doi.org/10.21429/t352-9q86
Contact
| Date published: | May 8, 2025 |
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| Last updated: | May 13, 2026 |