(1993)  Page(s) 35-36.  Includes photo(s).
 
The native stand of Rosa minutifolia in California is confined to a single quarter-acre plot in the southwest corner of San Diego County. There are more in Baja California [in Mexico]...All are under maritime influence with mild summers and nearly frost-free winters. ¶As is typical in Mediterranean climates, rainfall occurs in fall and winter months, generally from November through March. Even during this period precipitation can be spare, usually ten inches or less. Rosa minutifolia is, therefore xerophytic....Leafless in summer, it easily survives as long as nine months without water. When the rains come, it responds rapidly with growth, flowering, and setting seed. This winter-spring patterns of growth and bloom is possible because of the virtual absence of frost....A white-flowered variety is found only in Baja California....¶Rosa minutifolia is little known outside California....The oldest [garden] planting is probably in Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Gardens, where the former director...observed it for over twenty years. His three plants never produced seeds, so they concluded that they probably were one clone, grown from cuttings. This rose is known to be self-infertile, but seeds are produced readily in mixed stands.¶ Propagation methods include seeds (no stratification is needed), cuttings, division and layering. Tissue culture has not been successful to date. To my knowledge, hybrids have yet been produced....it is a diploid, so it would not hybridize with modern tetraploid cultivars.¶The distinctive characteristics described by Engelmann, along with the bast fibers in the tissue (known in only two other rose species), led to placement of this rose in a new subgenus of Rosa: Herperhodos. It was the sole species in this subgenus until the discovery in New Mexico in 1893 of Rosa stellata, whose strong affinity...indicate[s] a possible common ancestor.