Website/Catalog (2005) Page(s) 1-5. Includes photo(s).
TAXONOMIC UNIQUENESS: The subspecies abyssa is 1 of 3 in the species Rosa stellata; there are 56 species in the genus. “The most apparent morphological difference between R. s. ssp. abyssa and all other taxa of R. stellata is the consistent presence of very robust, dense prickles on the hypanthium of the Arizona specimens. Although the hypanthium prickles are somewhat variable in the specimens from New Mexico and Texas, they are not as dense as in Arizona specimens.” (Phillips 1992).
DESCRIPTION: Low-growing clonal, woody shrub with numerous stiff upright stems 2.5-15 dm (10-60 in.) long, and armed with numerous long straight white to straw-colored paired infrastipular thorns, and with or without scattered internodal bristles and prickles. Stems brown, densely pubescent with short stipitate glands, these often encircled by stiff, white, stellately arranged basal pubescence. Leaves with 3-5 wedge shaped leaflets, rounded at broad apex, 5-12 mm long and 3-9 mm wide, sometimes with a few bristles, without glands except immediately below flowers, with 4-8 teeth above the middle; stipules attached to the petiole for half or more of their length; leaves turn bright red in the fall. Flowers solitary at the ends of the stems, about 5 cm (2 in) across; sepals oval, broad at base, to 2.5 cm (1.0 in) long with 2 or more lobes and with free tips; petals dark pink, obovate, 1.5-2.0 cm (0.6-0.8 in.) wide and slightly longer. Hypanthium densely bristly with long, stout, straight prickles, some gland-tipped. Fruit is very spiny, roundish, enclosed by the sepals, 1.0-1.8 cm in diameter; seeds brown, smooth, about 4.0 mm long.
AIDS TO IDENTIFICATION: Three leaflets, length equals width; white straight thorns; densely bristly hypanthium. Leaves turn bright red in the fall and contrast with the white thorns. The Arizona rose (Rosa woodsii) has brown curved spines, lacks stellate pubescence, has fruits without prickles, and is generally found at higher elevations in more mesic habitats (Phillips 1999)...
TOTAL RANGE: Arizona Strip, rims (mainly north rims) of the Grand Canyon, Kanab Canyon, and junction of Little Colorado River and Big Canyon in northern Arizona.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Phillips (1992): The Arizona localities of Rosa stellata are disjunct by at least 750 km (465 miles) from the nearest localities of the species in New Mexico. Lewis (1965) did not include Arizona specimens in his monograph of the group, although the species has been known from the rims of the Grand Canyon since 1908. Except for one locality west of Grand Canyon Village, the plants are north of the Grand Canyon at the rims of canyons and points. Increasingly, areas on public lands are undergoing development for uranium mining. The populations are local, consisting of a few to a few hundred plants in an area up to a few acres in size, and the few known localities are widely separated.
