Characteristics: This is a large family with many surprising members. The basic rose flower has five sepals and radial petals, but from five to many stamens (see note, below). The Rose family is subdivided into four subfamilies, based on fruit structures. The groups are: Rosoideae (rose, blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, Potentilla, Geum), Spiraeoideae (Spiraea, Sorbaria ), Maloideae (apple, cotoneaster, hawthorn, pear, quince, etc.), and Prunoideae (plum, peach, almond, cherry, and apricot).
Roses
There are obvious differences between wild native roses and the long-stemmed red roses that are the Valentine favorite. In fact you could be forgiven for not recognizing a wild rose if the flower were all you could see. The leaves and thorns, however, would put you on track.
Our native roses are, for the most part, simply small to very small shrubs with three to four inch pink flowers. They take a little doing to key for species identification, but are all immediately recognized as roses.
There is a bit of genetic variation is several types of flowers that produces "double-flowering", caused by some of the many stamens actually developing into petals. This naturally-ocurring modification has been carried to new limits by nursery developed variations on roses that now have many many fragrant petals and minimal stamens now hidden deep in the rose flowers.
Apples
Strange to learn that the word 'apple' seems to be today's version of a Balto-Slavic word ablu, meaning wild pumpkin. Apples are thought to have originated over 6000 years ago in the the forests of the Tien Shan mountains of eastern Kazakstan (Read the BBC.com story).
If you want to read a very interesting history of apples (and trust me, it's more interesting than you would expect!), check out Michael Pollan's article on Wild Apples, or better yet, get his book, Botany of Desire, which is worth it just for the chapter on apples. His story of Johnny Appleseed and observations of the importance of apples not so much for snacks but rather as a source for hard cider and just plain sweet eats (no sugar back then!) is illuminating.
"401 B.C.—Greek historian and essayist, Xenophon is so inspired by walled fruit gardens throughout the Persian empire that he establishes one on his own estate in Greece. He then proceeds to coin a new Greek word from the Persian pairidaeza, or walled garden, later becoming the Latin paradisus, and finally the English paradise." — Perdue.edu
Strawberries
A personal favorite, strawberries have, like virtually every cultivated fruit or vegetable, long ago left their native versions in the dust, so to speak, as growers perfected the fruit to maximize the qualities. It's always fun to mention that a strawberry is not a berry at all; it's an accessory fruit. A strawberry flower has a domed receptacle that bears an indefinite number of pistils. The real fruits are actually the hard little seeds (achenes) that fleck the largely swollen receptacle tissue which is now so bright red and juicy!
We have two species of wild strawberries in the county: Fragaria vesca and F. virginiana. Both are delicious if you are lucky enough to find some berries that the animals have missed!
The genus name comes from Latin fragum, fragrant.