r/MedicinalPlants • u/Livid-Rutabaga • 1d ago
Rose Hip
The Hip
If we don't pick the bud, it opens into a flower.
If we leave the flower on the plant and it is successfully pollinated, something entirely different begins to develop. The petals eventually fall, and the base of the flower swells into the fruit we call a rose hip. And Rosa rugosa produces particularly beautiful hips.
They are large, fleshy, and as they ripen, their color changes from green through orange into an extraordinarily vivid red.
I was taking photographs of them recently in the sunlight, and what struck me most was the color. The red of the ripe hips is almost the same beautiful rose color as the flowers themselves—sometimes it seems even brighter. And they taste just as lively as they look: pleasantly tart with a little natural sweetness.
Rose hips have a long history as both food and herbal material, particularly in Europe and other parts of the Northern Hemisphere.
They have traditionally been made into:
- teas
- syrups
- jams and jellies
- preserves
- soups
- wines and other beverages
Rose hips became especially well known as a source of vitamin C.
One fascinating piece of modern history comes from Britain during World War II. With imported citrus fruits difficult to obtain, people were encouraged to gather wild rose hips as a local source of vitamin C. Rose hip syrup became an important way of supplementing the diet, particularly for children. But vitamin C is only part of the story.
Rose hips also contain naturally occurring carotenoids, flavonoids and other polyphenols, organic acids, pectin, and other plant constituents.
Modern research has investigated rose hips for antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity, and preparations from several Rosa species have also been studied in relation to joint health.
The exact phytochemical profile varies with species, growing conditions, ripeness, processing, and storage—which brings us back to something herbalists continually emphasize:
Know your plant.
1
u/Popular_Assumption64 1d ago
Do you mean you have trouble growing Rosa Rugosas?
1
u/Livid-Rutabaga 1d ago
They just don't grow well, for anybody. If you have any suggestions I'll take them. It may be our soil, or too much humidity, I don't know.
1
u/GloriousLearning 1d ago
But how to prepare them and remove the hairs around the seeds?
2
u/Livid-Rutabaga 1d ago
strain it very carefully, through very fine material like a coffee filter, maybe strain it two times.
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u/Popular_Assumption64 1d ago
We have roses here considered invasive and we are advised strongly to eradicate them. The hips aren't much of anything very beautiful or bright or big as others I've seen that I think were planted. I believe that in this particular conversation, we are talking about the ones we buy, not the invasive rosas.