Rosa hugonis was named after Father Hugo (Hugh Scanlan), who sent seeds of this species back to Kew Gardens in 1899 from China. Lemon-yellow flowers in late spring and early summer are followed by intense red fall foliage. This species earned an Award of Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society in 1914 and an Award of Garden Merit in 1925. Rosa hugonis is a tough, reliably hardy and extremely thorny shrub rose to 6' in the Chicago region, and is among the first of the shrub roses to bloom each year.