Mancos rose

Rosa manca Greene, Pittonia 4: 11. 1899

Shrubs, 2–10(+) dm. Stems usually densely branched; prickles usually present on distal stems and branches, infrastipular curved or hooked, rarely erect, terete, 3–6 mm, internodal usually dense, rarely sparse or absent. Terminal leaflets obovate, sometimes ovate or elliptic, (6–)13–17(–35) mm. Inflorescences 1–3(+)-flowered. Sepals: abaxial surfaces usually stipitate-glandular.

Flowering Jun–Jul. Rocky meadows, high mountain forests to aspen and scrub oak woodlands, along streams, moist ditch banks; 2100–3300 m; Ariz., Colo., N.Mex., Utah, Wyo.

Subspecies manca [2x (DNA)] is the high-elevation representative of Rosa woodsii in the southern Rocky Mountains and outlying peaks and ridges of the Colorado Plateau, particularly characteristic of Gambel oak woodlands. Plants are relatively short and tend to have curved prickles, obovate leaflets, and stipitate-glandular sepals. As so circumscribed, this is not the R. manca of E. W. Erlanson (1934), which was regarded as a hexaploid (2n = 42) ecotype of R. nutkana. Neither is it the R. manca of A. Cronquist and N. H. Holmgren (1997), which represented a mixture of subsp. manca and R. nutkana, probably subsp. melina.