Rose

Rosa canina

Also: Dog rose, Rose hips, Rosa rugosa, Rosa damascena, Wild rose

CoolingDryingTonifying

Cooling, tightening, and comforting, from petal to hip.

Wild and old garden roses carry the medicine: fragrant petals in summer and bright hips in autumn. Rose cools and tightens hot, inflamed, weeping tissue inside and out, and offers shelter when life feels like too much.

Energetics: Cooling, drying, tonifying
Taste: Sweet, sour, aromatic, astringent
Family: Rosaceae (rose family)
Parts used: Petals and hips

Medicinal uses 12

The tags sort the evidence behind each use by kind. Members are able to tap a condition to compare every herb for it.

Traditional useLab and mechanism studiesClinical studies

Burns & sunburnTLC
Rose water cools burns and sunburn and helps them heal.
Cuts, scrapes & bleedingTLC
An astringent wash for weeping wounds.
Acne & breakoutsTLC
Rose water and rose vinegar tone oily, breakout-prone skin.
Loose bowelsTLC
Petals tighten and heal an inflamed, loose gut.
Gut irritation & ulcersTLC
Helps heal ulceration and inflammation in the gut.
Sore throatTLC
A gargle of petal tea eases sore throats.
Mouth sores & gumsTLC
A mouthwash of the petals firms soft, bleeding gums and helps canker sores close.
Grief & heartacheTLC
Comfort and protection in grief, loneliness, and overwhelm.
Low moodTLC
Lifts a spirit ground down by long illness or stress.
Heart supportTLC
A cooling cardiac tonic for inflamed vessels, often with hawthorn and hibiscus.
Joint pain & arthritisTLC
Rose hip powder eases osteoarthritic joints.
Colds & fluTLC
Hips bring vitamin C to cold-season teas.

Preparations

Petal tea, rose water, strained hip tea and syrup, and petal honey.

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Cautions

Use unsprayed roses; florist roses carry heavy pesticide residues.
Strain hips through cloth, since the fine hairs inside irritate the throat and gut.

Pregnancy & breastfeeding

PregnancyFood and tea amounts

Petals and hips in tea and food amounts are widely used. Formal research is thin.

BreastfeedingFood and tea amounts

Petals and hips in tea and food amounts are widely used. Formal research is thin.

Folklore

A rose hung over a meeting table meant that everything said beneath it stayed secret, the origin of the phrase sub rosa. Romans strewed petals at feasts, and Persian distillers turned rose water into a trade good carried across the medieval Islamic world. During the Second World War, when oranges stopped reaching Britain, schoolchildren gathered wild rose hips by the ton for a national vitamin C syrup.

How to grow

Choose fragrant, open-pollinated roses: rugosa for big hips and disease resistance, gallica or damask for petals. Give them full sun, good air flow, and rich soil. Pick petals in the morning once the dew dries, leaving one or two on each flower for the pollinators, and gather hips after the first frost.

In the wild

Dog rose fills European hedgerows, and native wild roses grow across the Northern Hemisphere in thickets, clearings, forest edges, and coastal scrub.

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