Shrubs climbing, rarely erect; prickles curved. Leaflets 5–9, rarely 3; stipules adnate to petiole, margin entire, serrate, or pectinately lobed. Flowers numerous in corymb. Sepals often pinnately lobed, rarely entire, after anthesis reflexed and deciduous. Styles connate into a column, exserted.

Rosa alexandrae Buzunova (Novon 4: 209. 1994) was described from a single specimen collected in Gansu in 1885: Potanin s.n. (LE). It apparently has no close relatives within R. sect. Synstylae, but may be remotely related to R. weisiensis, which differs from R. alexandrae in its straight, basally dilated prickles and narrower leaflets.

About 35 species: N Africa, Asia, Europe, North America; 30 species (22 endemic) in China.