 Rose

A rose is a flowering plant of Rosa, within Rosaceae. The term also refers to its flower. Roses are typically shrubs or climbing plants, and many cultivated forms have a hybrid origin and are selected for floral traits. Their flowers have a characteristic cup-shaped hypanthium, with numerous stamens around the rim and many separate carpels inside.^[ref]

After successful reproduction, the hypanthium can enlarge into a rose hip. The small dry fruits enclosed within it are achenes; the fleshy outer structure is not one giant seed or a single enlarged ovary. Cutting a mature hip lengthwise and locating the individual achenes provides a direct anatomical comparison with a strawberry, whose achenes sit outside its fleshy receptacle.^[ref]

This comparison explains a useful feature of Rosaceae: related plants can produce conspicuously different edible or seed-bearing structures by enlarging different tissues and arranging their carpels differently. The family relationship is consequently richer than resemblance between petals alone.