ROSACEAE. — ROSA 307 



Rosa Brownii Trattinnick, Ros. Monog. 11. 96 (1823). 



Rosa moschata, var. nepalensis Lindley in Bot. Reg, X. t. 829 (1824). — Will- 



mott, Gen. Rosa, I. 37, t. (1910). 

 Rosa Brunonis Wallich, Cat. No. 689 (1828). 

 Rosa puhcscens Roxburgh, FL Ind. ed. 2, 11. 514 (1832). 

 Rosa moschata Brandis, Forest FL Brit. Ind. 201 (non Miller) (1874). — Hooker 



f., Fl. Brit. Ind. II. 367 (1879). — Cr6pin in Bull. Soc. Bot. Belg. XVIII. 



287 (1879). 



Western Szech'uan: Wa-shan, thickets, alt. 1300-2000 m.^ 

 June and October 1908 (No. 1125); vicinity of Tachien-lu, A. E. Pratt 

 (No. 278). 



Rosa Brunonii is fairly common in the valley of the Tung River, where it forms 

 tangled masses 6 m. and more high and as much in diameter. The Chinese plant 

 differs slightly from the type of the species as described and figured by Lindley in 

 its glabrous shoots and in the glabrous or nearly glabrous upper surfaces of the 

 leaflets, but most of the Indian specimens before us also show glabrous shoots, so 

 that it does not seem possible to separate the Chinese and the Himalayan plants. 



We have restored this Rose to specific rank only after careful consideration. 

 The discovery of several species of Musk Roses in China has caused us to consider 

 Rosa moschata Miller as the centre of a group of these plants. For these species 

 introduced into gardens in Europe and North America have come true from seed, 

 maintained their distinguishing characters, and are so distinct that no horti- 

 culturist confuses them with the Musk Roses previously in cultivation. To ug 

 there appears to be a number of geographical segregates which agree with the 

 Musk Rose beloved of our ancestors, in having white flowers with a musk-like 

 fragrance, a protruded club-shaped pistil, reflexed calyx-lobes and adnate stipules, 

 but differing from each other in so many other particulars that they are easily 

 recognized as distinct species and varieties. 



The original Rosa moschata Miller {Gard. Diet. ed. 8, II. 950 [1768]) is an obscure 

 plant in spite of the fact that it had been in cultivation in England fully a 

 century and a half before Miller described it as " Rose with prickly climbing stem, 

 leaves with 7 smooth lobes, glabrous when old and flowers in umbels," a descrip- 

 tion which does not help us much. Miller cites Rosa Moschata major J. Bauhin. 

 In Bauhin's Hist. PI. II. 45, fig. (1650) there are figures of three forms of R. moschata, 

 Bauhin states he found the R. moschata major in Burgundy and transferred it to 

 his garden at Montbehard, where it was not very hardy. Similar figures to those 

 of Bauhin's appear in Lobel's PI. Stirp. Icon. II. 207 (1581). The R. moschata 

 Miller has been known in European gardens since early times. The first mention 

 we can find is by C. Gcsner as Rosa muscata in his Horti Germaniae (in V. Cordus, 

 Annot. 276 [1561]); it is also mentioned by Turner in his Herbal, II. 116 (1568), 

 and in a rather vague way by Mattioli in his Commentariij where in later editions 

 it is identified with the " Nesrim " of the lAher Serapionis. Parkinson (ParadisxiSt 

 419, fig. 6 [1629]) figures it under the name of Rosa moschata hispanica simplex. 



Modem writers agree that the Musk Rose of our ancestors was native somewhere 

 in the Mediterranean region. A specimen before us from M. Gandoger's Herbarium 

 (No. 550), named Rosa ruscinonensis Grenier, and collected at Perpignan in the 

 Pyrenees, agrees remarkably well with Bauhin's and Lobel's figures of R. moschata 

 major, and Miller's description fits it more closely than it does any other Musk 

 Rose we have seen. A specimen in the Gray Herbarium collected by G. Schwein- 

 furth (No. 1741) on March 10, 1889, along the upper Wadi Nahemi above 



