Rosa ×centifolia
ζ*R. × centifolia L. ζ*, moss rose, has been collected apparently wild near Fairlie, S. Canterbury. The plant probably grew from a sucker shoot off a cultivated parent in the vicinity. An erect or rather spreading shrub usually 1-2 m high; young shoots densely covered with glandular acicles and glandular hairs, with scattered glandular prickles; lvs usually of 2 pairs of leaflets with glandular petiole and rachis. Leaflets broadly elliptic, glabrous above, with eglandular hairs beneath but glandular hairs on midribs and margins; fls solitary (sometimes several in cultivation), double; pedicels erect, densely covered with glandular hairs and acicles; receptacle and sepals densely covered with long, often branched, reddish glandular hairs outside giving these parts a mossy appearance; petals pink or possibly white. The plant described represents cv. 'Muscosa', which is one of a group of cvs with a mossy appearance to the fls. Steen (op. cit.) stated that cv. 'Variegata' is wild on hillsides and on the roadside at Mangaweka but no specimens have been seen. R. × centifolia is thought to be a hybrid of R. gallica and R. damascena Miller, damask rose, which originated in the late 17th century. (Cultivated hybrid, 1988).
