Rosa abyssinica

Rosa abyssinica is a prickly evergreen shrub, creeping or often climbing, capable of forming a small tree up to 23 feet (7 meters) tall. It has a few prickles on the stem, slightly curved from a wide base and all similar. It has many variable features. The leaves are compound and leathery. It has 3 pairs leaflets plus one at the tip, each narrowly ovate from .5 to 2 inches (1 cm to 6 cm) tip sharp, edge toothed, on a short stalk which is winged by the leafy stipules. Flowers are of fragrant white-pale yellow, and are usually 3 to 20 in dense heads, each stalked, the sepals long, narrow and hairy, soon fall, and have 5 petals about 2 cm long, tip rounded to square, with many stamens. The fruits are green at first, but later ripen to orange-red. They are about 1 inch (2 cm) long, fleshy and edible with seed within.[4] It has been described as a "big prickly 'dog rose.’”[5]

Rosa abyssinica is found in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Yemen, Saudi Arabia[6], Somalia and the Sudan.[7] It is common in the Ethiopian highlands and the mountains of Yemen across the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, a distribution paralleled by Primula verticillata and a few other plants. [8]It commonly forms thickets in upland dry evergreen forests, margins, clearings, upland bushland, rocky places, and riparian formations.

Food (fruit and flower), medicinal (fruit), garden, ornamental.[9]

Rosa abyssinica has sometimes been cultivated as a "living fence” surrounding home gardens in rural villages. [10]

The fruit (hips) of Rosa abyssinica is eaten, mostly by children, and is believed to alleviate fatigue or tension.[11] Birds eat the fruit as do baboons (baboons also consume the flowers). Medicinally, the fruit are eaten in as a remedy for worms (hook, tape and round). The crushed leaves have been used in remedies for hepatitis. [12]

Ethiopian rose, Wild Ethiopian rose, African rose, Abyssinian rose (English), Qaqawwii (Oromo), Dayero (Somali), Gaka (Turkish), Kega (Ethiopian - Amharic) [13]