BULLETIN 
OF THE 
TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 
Vol. XIV.) New York, December 3, 1887. [No. 12. 
Remarks on the Group Caroline of the Genus Rosa. 
By G. N. BEsT, M.D. 
Notwithstanding the labor and thought that have been expend- 
ed both at home and abroad on the Wild Roses of North America 
they are yet, at least as far as certain species are concerned, not 
in a very satisfactory condition to most botanists. One reason for 
this, as pointed out by M. Crepin,* is that many of the speci- 
mens found in the various herbaria are nearly worthless, consist- 
ing of a small branch, a few leaves and flowers, without mature 
fruit. To be available for diagnostic purposes, they should be 
the whole bush, the upper two-thirds at least, collected when 
flowering, with fruit later in the season. 
Another reason is the variability of certain characters upon 
whose constancy too much reliance has been placed in the found- 
ing of species. Reference is here had to sepals, whether lobed or 
entire; stipules, whether narrow or dilated, toothed or entire; 
spines, whether straight, curved or absent. These in many in- 
stances are so variable as rather to be considered accidents of 
growth, depending apparently on peculiarities of soil or location, 
or both, and of value only in determining varieties. There is no 
plant perhaps that reflects more its environments than the Rose. 
Growing at the foot of a hill, in damp rich soil, with stout stems, 
thick shining leaves, broad stipules and stout curved or reflexed 
spines, they present a very different appearance from those 
found at the hill top, where the soil is light and dry, exposed to 
the sun. Here the stems are slender, branches more diffuse, 
* Nouvelles Remarques sur les Roses Americaines, 
