Black roses (roses of black color) do not exist in nature as such, but nevertheless have been created in laboratories. Botanists have manipulated roses' genes through preliminary cross breeding, creating a hybrid black rose. They are often featured in fiction with many different meanings and titles such as black magic, barkarole, black beauty Tuscany superb, black Jade and baccara and death varieties of roses. The flowers commonly called black roses are actually a very dark shade of red, purple, or maroon. The color of a rose may be deepened by placing a dark rose in a vase of water mixed with black ink.

The flowers of most species have five petals, with the exception of Rosa sericea, which usually has only four. Each petal is divided into two distinct lobes and is usually white or pink, though in a few species yellow or red. Beneath the petals are five sepals (or in the case of some Rosa sericea, four). These may be long enough to be visible when viewed from above and appear as green points alternating with the rounded petals. There are multiple superior ovaries that develop into achenes.Roses are insect-pollinated in nature.


The aggregate fruit of the rose is a berry-like structure called a rose hip. Many of the domestic cultivars do not produce hips, as the flowers are so tightly petalled that they do not provide access for pollination. The hips of most species are red, but a few (e.g. Rosa pimpinellifolia) have dark purple to black hips. Each hip comprises an outer fleshy layer, the hypanthium, which contains 5–160 "seeds" (technically dry single-seeded fruits called achenes) embedded in a matrix of fine, but stiff, hairs. Rose hips of some species, especially the Dog Rose (Rosa canina) and Rugosa Rose (Rosa rugosa), are very rich in vitamin C, among the richest sources of any plant. The hips are eaten by fruit-eating birds such as thrushes and waxwings, which then disperse the seeds in their droppings. Some birds, particularly finches, also eat the seeds.