Rosehips.

To: herb.franklin.oit.unc.edu
Subject: Re: rose hips
From: Henriette Kress <hetta.saunalahti.fi>
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 11:56:25 +0200

Cha123chi.aol.com wrote to herb.franklin.oit.unc.edu:
>I have just harvested the red-colored rose hips from my garden, per an herbalist friend's fleeting advice thrown out while she was walking my backyard labyrinth.
>Now I've got a good sized basket full of them & don't know what the heck to do with them.

Cut them open, and dry them. I don't recommend a dehydrator because that'd distribute said hairs evenly over the entire room and more. Then shake the itchy hairs out upwind and outdoors. Then use the red fruit flesh in whatever you were going to use it, add a little water and boil it up to make a sort of mush, or use it in teas. Store-bought rosehip tea gets its taste and color from karkade (roselle, Hibiscus sabdariffa), so don't be disappointed when your tea has looks like colored water and has no taste.

It's too late to pick rosehips if they've been frozen. By the time the frost hits and preserves them it's one or two months after optimum picking time, and they're sort of mushy. And lots have gone bad. Leave a few bad ones in and they'll ruin your whole batch.

Also, last fall, over here, every rosehip I sliced into had a maggot or two. Waaa! Such a nice basketful that was, too, but alas, I like my protein in larger chunks.

We had no apples, nor any mountain ash / rowanberries. The hawthornes (also rose family) were very clean. Perhaps they're too dry for the apple/rowan worms?

>Should I have also taken the old, dry, shriveled hips from last year's ungroomed growth well? Again ... THEN what?

No. You could put up some bird feeders, though. That way you won't have any dry, old, shriveled hips from last year.

Henriette

To: herb.franklin.oit.unc.edu
Subject: rose hips
From: edbaud.bbs.slv.org
Date: 18 Jan 1999 19:27:12 mdt

Rose hips can be used as an ingredient in tea either fresh or dried without processing. The wild rose that grows in the mountains here in Southern Colorado has quite a bit of flesh and is edible. Seeds are more or less inert for purposes of tea. The point is vitamin C and a nice flavor.

I think you can use any rose hip you find although lots of variation in flavor and texture.

The briar rose (which has apple scented foliage) has a much harder and greener hip than our native rose.

I don't think there is any way you can go wrong with fresh or dried rose hips (although lord knows...). You might make a better tea by boiling the water with the hips in it for a bit. Lots of other flavorings can be blended with rose hips and it can be part of many nice and maybe useful blends.

I think rose hips gathered in the wild are sold commercially anyway. In certain locations and climates there are vast quantities of wild rose hips.

Fred, Crestone, Colorado

From: "Thomas Mueller" <tmueller.bluegrass.net>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 06:27:46 -0500 (EST)

I wonder if the rose hips you describe are Rosa multiflora: small fruits, not much pulp, bitter, not very palatable. Rosa canina is the species commonly used for dried hips such as you might buy through herbal dealers. But once I had sweet juicy fruits from a rose by a house that was condemned for urban renewal. I don't know what that species was (rugosa maybe?), but it couldn't have been canina.

Maybe somebody else can answer, does vitamin C survive boiling?

From: May Terry <mterry.snet.net>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 08:37:20 -0500

> I don't know what that species was (rugosa maybe?), but it couldn't have been canina.

I live near the CT shore, and rosa rugosa is what I use.

May

To: herb.franklin.oit.unc.edu
Subject: Re: rosehips
From: Henriette Kress <hetta.saunalahti.fi>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 08:45:37 +0200

>Any preferences for favorite roses for rosehip use?

Whichever is most abundant in your yard or neighborhood. If you don't have any such plant a rugosa rose; those hips are -huge-. And if you do two you'll have both white and pink flowers, most of the summer - that is, if your climate is anything like the one I have up here.

Cheers
Henriette