Native Garden Plant Factsheets

Nootka Rose (ḴEL¸ḴE¸IȽĆ / qəl̕qəʔíɬč)

Illustration by Sabrina Saenko

English Name(s): Nootka Rose
Scientific Name: Rosa nutkana
SENĆOŦEN Name: ḴEL¸ḴE¸IȽĆ (bush), ḴEL¸EḴ (flower), ḴÁL¸Ḵ (bud)
lək̓ʷəŋən Name: qəl̕qəʔíɬč (bush), qə́l̕əq (flower), qél̕q (bud)

Fun Facts:
This plant is between ½ and 3 meters tall adorned with pairs of prickles often at the base of each leaf. It is usually spindly though can be tall or bushy depending on sunlight and moisture, often forming thickets or hedgerows. The leaves are compound with 5 or 7 toothed oval leaflets (1-7cm long) around a central stalk, and are strongly scented. It has single flowers with 5 wide (4-8 cm) pink petals at branch tips, which will turn into red hips.

Traditional Uses:
Tender young shoots were peeled and eaten in the spring, while the fruit was eaten raw in the fall (after removing the seeds which cause irritation). The roots can be peeled and boiled with other roots to make reef nets and a treatment for soar throats, while the branches can be boiled to make an eyewash, or put in steaming pits and cooking baskets with the leaves to flavour and prevent to food from burning. The bark can be made into tea to ease labour pains.

Blooms: May to July
Season: August to October, persisting through winter
Habitat: Generally open and moist habitats such as shorelines, streambanks, floodplains, meadows, clearings, roadsides, thickets, open forests, and forest edges
Range: Low to middle elevation regions in the Pacific Northwest like Vancouver Island and the Fraser Valley, up to Southern Alaska and down to Southern California, as well as inland to Montana, Utah, and New Mexico

Further Sources:

http://nativeplantspnw.com/nootka-rose-rosa-nutkana/
Saanich Ethnobotany by Nancy J. Turner & Richard J. Hebda
Plants of Coastal British Columbia by Jim Pojar & Andy MacKinnon

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