Website/Catalog  (2018)  
 
Rosa gymnocarpa Nuttall in J. Torrey and A. Gray, Fl. N. Amer. 1: 461. 1840.
Rosa gymnocarpa Nuttall var. gymnocarpa
Wood or baldhip rose
Rosa abietorum Greene; R. helleri Greene; R. leucopsis Greene; R. piscatoria Greene
Description
 

Article (magazine)  (2016)  
 
Two subspecies are recognized: subsp. gymnocarpa, primarily west of the Cascade-Sierra axis, and subsp. helleri (Greene) Ertter & W. H. Lewis, occurring from southeastern British Columbia and northwestern Montana to the northern Sierra Nevada in California. Subspecies gymnocarpa is further divided into var. gymnocarpa and var. serpentina Ertter & W. H. Lewis. A key, range descriptions, and representative specimens are provided for infraspecific taxa. Extensive zones of intergradation occur where the ranges intersect, especially in the Klamath and Siskiyou ranges of northeastern California and adjacent Oregon; intermediates are also common in northern Idaho and adjacent states and provinces. 

Article (newsletter)  (Aug 2014)  Page(s) 3.  
 
If one looked at the five pink petals alone, the flower might easily be mistaken for nearly any other California wild rose. But location aside, we can distinguish a few traits from some of the others. R. gymnocarpa, not a crawler, tends to grow erect and even as tall as four feet, generally in part shade beneath redwood or oak trees. It also drops its ovate sepals and, unlike R. spithamea, exudes a strong fragrance.....Could Rosas spithamea, pinetorum, and bridgesii, all three ground roses and genetically tetraploid, be subspecies of R. gymnocarpa, a diploid? Possibly. According to rose species authority Cassandra Bernstein, “Widely distributed diploid plant species that spread into extreme environments”— and R. gymnocarpa can be found from the understory of redwoods to the understory of oaks, from the Sierra Nevada foothills to the Pacific coast —“have been known to mutate, evolve, or hybridize into different ploidies than those commonly reported.” Surely, then, the three ground rose species may be the same rose whose ecogeographic variations have created variations in the species.

Book  (1996)  Page(s) 188-189.  
 
Rosa gymnocarpa Nuttall Baldhip Rose, Dwarf Rose
Slender, bristly stems .6-1.6 m tall; the prickles straight, weak, the infrastipular ones barely distinguishable from the others. Leaves with 5-9 leaflets. Leaflets biserrate with fine gland-tipped teeth; flowers 20-35 mm across, solitary or in small clusters, deep rose-coloured; sepals triangular without appendages, deciduous after flowering. Fruit ovoid to almost spherical with no calyx when rip. Illustration.

Book  (May 1992)  Page(s) 5.  Includes photo(s).

Book  (1988)  Page(s) 154.  
 
location 150/2, R. gymnocarpa Nutt. (shade tolerant), CINNAMOMEAE, western North America, 1893, pink, single, small, cluster-flowered, late-blooming, vigorous, bushy, upright, 1-3 m, many prickles, medium green matte small-medium foliage, 7-9 leaflets, orange-coloured small matte very glandular rounded to bottle-shaped fruit, upright persistent sepals

Book  (1944)  Page(s) 465.  Includes photo(s).
 
Rosa gymnocarpa Nutt. Wood Rose. Fig. 2518.
Rosa gymnocarpa Nutt. ex Torr. & Gray, Fl. N. Amer. 1 : 461. 1840.

Stems slender, erect, 1-3 m. high, often very bristly and with slender infrastipular prickles, the floral branches often unarmed. Stipules narrow, glandular-ciliate and usually dentate; petioles and rachis usually glandular-hispid ; leaflets 5-9, suborbicular to elliptic, 1-3 cm. long, thin, glabrous on both surfaces, doubly serrate with gland-tipped teeth ; flowers usually solitary ; hypanthium ellipsoid, in fruit 4-6 mm. broad; sepals ovate, acuminate, glabrous on the back, deciduous with the styles.
In shady woods, chiefly Humid Transition Zone; British Columbia to Montana and central California. Type locality: in shady woods, Oregon. May-July. Bald-hip Rose.
Greene (Leaflets Bot. Obs. 2: 255-266. 1912) has described ten segregates of this species based on minor vegetative variations.

Book  (1940)  Page(s) 444.  
 
R. gymnocarpa Nutt. Shrub to 3 m., stems with paired very slender prickles and bristles: lfts. 5-9, broad-elliptic to elliptic-oblong, 1-3.5 cm. long, doubly glandular-serrate, glabrous; stipules glandular-ciliate and dentate: fls. usually solitary, rose, about 3 cm. across; pedicels glabrous or glandular-hispid: fr. ellipsoid or sunglobose, 6-8 mm. across. Fl. VI-VII. W.R.221,t(c). B. C. to Calif. and Mont. Intr. 1893. Zone V.

Book  (1939)  Page(s) 183.  
 
Rosa pisocarpa.....In general habit of growth this species is easily confused with R. gymnocarpa from which it can be distinguished by the persistent calyx on the fruit.

Book  (1939)  Page(s) 179, 181.  
 
Key to the Species
Sepals, styles and upper part of the hypanthium not persistent on the fruit; pistils few....9. R. gymnocarpa