While I was up in Alaska, we saw plenty of wild animals, but we also saw lots of new and different plants and flowers, too. Although in Florida we have at least a few wildflowers all year round, up there the growing season was definitely coming to an end. Most of the plants had berries and/or yellow or brown leaves, but there were a few flowers still remaining. One of the prettiest ones was the prickly rose (Rosa acicularis), a wild rose that you can find in northern areas of North America, Europe, and Asia. It’s also known as bristly rose, Arctic rose, wild rose, and prickly wild rose. It is a member of the rose family (Rosaceae) like the common ornamentals, but the flowers are obviously less intricate. Instead of the many overlapping petals, it has only five. They surround a circle of stamens with yellow anthers that circle numerous small, green pistils in the middle.

The flower in the photo was one of the last ones that I saw that was in any kind of reasonable condition. If you look at the petals you can see some early wilting and the usually bright yellow anthers were definitely turning brown. By the end of September most of the flowers had developed into the bright red berries or rose hips that contain the seeds. The hips are very high in vitamin C, and have been used to make jams, teas, and are sometimes eaten in salads (as are the leaves). They also attract plenty of birds, bears, porcupines, and other wildlife. One evening in Seward we were lucky enough to find a female moose (Alces alces) that was grazing on the rose hips along one of the city streets. An amazing sight (and subject for later post) for Floridians, but not totally unusual for Alaskans (although I noticed we weren’t the only ones that stopped to take photos).