The small fruits or berries formed after the flowering of roses are generally referred to as rose hips. The hips from wild roses have long been used for food and medicinal purposes in European countries, but only recently and with the advance of knowledge of vitamins has it been known that wild rose hips are an excellent source of vitamin C and also high in carotene or provitamin A. Wild roses grow in abundance in many places in this country and their value in foods has only recently received much attention.Garden varieties of rose hips are low in vitamin C as shown by Gronau (1941) and Tuba, Hunter, Hutchinson, and Kennedy (1943). Wild rose hips are generally high in vitamin C but differ according to variety, location of growth, and maturity. Tuba et al. (1943) in Canada found hips of Rosa laxa to have 3,000 to 4,000 mg. per cent and Rosa acicularis 1,800 to 3,500 mg. per cent of vitamin C on a dry basis. Vadova, Beider, and Yanishevskaya (1941) and Vadova, Menshikova, and Yanishevskaya (1941) in Russia found that Rosa cinnamomea and Rosa rugosa ripen early and rank high in vitamin C potency of from 2,275 to 6,977 mg. per cent, while Rosa canina ripens late and is lower in vitamin C of from 711 to 1,338 mg. per cent. Wokes, Johnson, Organ, and Jacoby (1943) and Wokes, Johnson, and Duncan (1943) prepared dried extracts of hips from Rosa canina and Rosa dumetorum which contained 1,300 t o 1,500 mg. per cent of vitamin C, 6,000 I. U. of provitamin A (carotene) per 100 grams, and 520 S. L. units of vitamin P per gram, but they found no significant amount of vitamin B,. Randoin and Qallot (1940) found that the pulp of fresh Rosa canina, apparently grown in France, contained 743 to 1,340 mg. per cent of vitamin C. Schroderheim (1941), writing in a Swedish publication, found that the vitamin C content over a three-year period averaged 250 mg. per cent in Rosa multiflora and 1,180 mg. per cent in Rosa nipponensis of the dried pulp. Bailey (1941) reported in a Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station bulletin that Rosa rugosa hips contained 22 mg. per cent and Rosa multijlora japonica only four mg. per cent of vitamin C. Pyke and Melville (1942) found that rose hips in Scotland and northern England were higher in vitamin C than those found in southern England. Sabalitschka and Michels (1942) observed that the vitamin C content of rose hips increased as they ripened and then decreased upon overripening. The decrease upon storage was greater, the riper the hips at the time of harvest.