Dear Mother, I am collecting rose hips for my first time this year. Pictures, etc., describe them as round. However, there are a number of wild roses in this area whose hips are an oval shape. They also seem less meaty with larger seed pod inside.
Roses are in the same plant family, Rosaceae, as apples and many other fruiting trees.
Just as apples come in different shapes, colors and flavors, so does the fruit of roses. The most abundant hip-producer is Rosa rugosa, introduced from Europe and gone wild everywhere. Grown commercially, Rosa rugosa is a generous provider of dried hips for packaged teas. The simple flowers of the wild rose have five red or pink petals and a yellow center. The hips that grow from them enclose five dry seed packets within a globe of orange-red flesh that contains sugar, a high concentration of vitamin C and other nutrients intended to attract browsing wild life that spread the seeds in their droppings.