1918] Fernald,— Rosa blanda and its Allies 93 
Bay shrub with its glabrous peduncles (or pedicels) and fruit and 
unarmed stem. In this diagnosis alone did Aiton describe the pedun- 
cles and fruit, the supplementary description containing no mention 
of them. This second description was taken almost without change 
from the Solander manuscript description of Banks’s Newfoundland 
shrub (R. virginiana Mill.), which has glandular-bristly fruit and 
glabrous foliage, with the petioles frequently spinulose-armed. 
It has generally been conceded that the Hudson Bay shrub with 
glabrous fruit and peduncles is the type of R. blanda, but recently 
some American publications have taken up R. Solandri Tratt., based 
upon the same Hudson Bay specimen as type, and have treated the 
Newfoundland specimen as the type of R. blanda. It should be clear, 
however, since Aiton’s primary diagnosis, in which alone the fruit is 
described, applies definitely to the Hudson Bay plant, and since he 
called his species unequivocally the “Hudson’s Bay Rose,” that he 
had primarily in mind: the Hudson Bay shrub, which he says was 
cultivated by Mr. James Gordon in 1773. The confusion with the 
“Hudson’s Bay Rose” of material with over-ripe fruit from New- 
foundland was natural; but, since the Newfoundland shrub described, 
without mention of its bristly fruit, in the last paragraph, proves to 
have been a somewhat uncharacteristic specimen of the earlier-pub- 
lished R. virginiana, a common species of southeastern Newfoundland, 
it would be a suppression of Aiton’s obvious intent to urge that, 
because in the third paragraph “ Newfoundland” precedes “ Hudson’s- 
bay,” Aiton’s R. blanda, the “Hudson’s Bay Rose,” with glabrous 
fruits must be made to rest upon the Newfoundland specimen with 
bristly fruit as type. 
The specific name blanda, too, is highly appropriate for a species 
with smooth fruits, smooth peduncles and unarmed petioles and 
flowering branches, but it would be peculiarly inappropriate for a 
shrub with bristly fruits and peduncles, spinulose petioles and rha- 
chises, and young stems, as Aiton described the Newfoundland shrub, 
“ aculeis rectis subreflexis tenuibus armati.” Although it is possible 
to argue: “What’s in a name? That which we call Rosa blanda by 
the name Rosa Solandri would be more clear,” it seems sufficiently 
obvious that Aiton meant by the “Hudson’s Bay Rose” the rose 
which he diagnosed from Hudson Bay and that the name Rosa blanda 
is correctly retained for that species. 
Rosa blanda has the sepals persistent and becoming strongly con- 
