Cherokee rose

American  

noun

1. the fragrant white rose of a prickly, climbing shrub, Rosa laevigata, originally from China and naturalized in the southern U.S.: the state flower of Georgia.

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Cherokee rose British  

noun

1. an evergreen climbing Chinese rose, Rosa laevigata, that now grows wild in the southern US, having large white fragrant flowers

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Etymology

Origin of Cherokee rose

An Americanism dating back to 1815–25

Example Sentences

The American Beauty is the flower of the District of Columbia, Georgia has the white Cherokee rose, Iowa the wild rose, and New York an unspecified variety of rose.

From Time Magazine Archive

Then we entered a by-way leading to the plantation, where we found the Cherokee rose in all its glory.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 by Various

In the South, Japanese honeysuckle and Cherokee rose perform this function extensively.

From Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) by Bailey, L. H. (Liberty Hyde)

The battery might have been a Cherokee rose.

From A Cathedral Singer by Allen, James Lane

The Cherokee rose, single-leafed, now so rare with us, seems here to have found a congenial foreign home.

From Due South or Cuba Past and Present by Ballou, Maturin Murray