Dog Rose is a rather unlovely name for this lovely bloom. Rosa canina scrambles through hedges and thickets flowering profusely at this time of year.
 I have made the point several times in this diary that the Latin name of a plant generally isn't what a Roman would have called it. Botanical Latin is a scholarly taxonomy developed for the most part from the 18th. century onward, notably by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus.
 In this case however the title Rosa canina does indeed date back to classical Latin. A preparation from it was believed to cure the bite of a mad dog. Pliny the Elder knew it by this association when he wrote his Naturalis historia published in 77 A.D.