Flora of New Zealand Series

N.; S.: scattered throughout in lowland localities.

Cultivated hybrids 1966

Mainly in and around old settlements, especially along roadsides and railway lines, on riverbanks, old mining sites, old mission station sites, and in hedges and around plantations near old homesteads, sometimes spreading into adjacent scrub.

This group of R. wichuraiana hybrid ramblers has R. multiflora or a group of shrub roses called hybrid perpetuals forming the other parent. They were nearly all produced in the last years of the 19th century and in the early 20th century and have little or no fragrance. Thomas in Bean (1980, op. cit.) gave the name `Dorothy Perkins' group to these R. wichuraiana hybrid ramblers. Almost certainly additional rambler roses to those listed below have become wild to a limited extent and several were mentioned as wild by Steen (op. cit.); one of the most distinctive of these unconfirmed escapes is the R. multiflora hybrid cv. 'Veilchenblau', an almost thornless rambler with rather small semi-double purple fls with a white central streak. The cvs in this group which have been collected as escapes from cultivation are: `American Pillar', `Crimson Rambler' (also known as `Turner's Crimson Rambler'), `Dorothy Perkins' (including its white and rose sports) and `Hiawatha'. They rarely form viable seed and their spread is by layering from original plantings. However, this can be extensive; thus areas of many square m can be covered by these roses and often other vegetation is smothered by them. If other woody vegetation is lacking these ramblers spread over the ground and sometimes form low tangled mounds.