Mr. Woops on the British Species of Rosa. 161 
sis," the following observations will sufficiently show that it is 
extremely defective. The existence of prickles, or rather of setze, 
on the fruit or on the peduncle, will not serve for this purpose 
much better, though these characters have hitherto been much 
insisted on ;—the setæ on the peduncle are, I believe, more con- 
stant than those on the fruit, but they are by no means implicitly 
-to be depended on. 
I have no intention, as I have no means, to enter in this essay 
on any examination of foreign Roses; but in endeavouring to 
form an arrangement of the British plants, it became necessary 
to pay some attention to the general appearances, and to the more 
striking characters of the foreign species. 1f the whole genus 
were spread out before a botanist, he would separate them, ac- 
cording to the habit or general appearance of the plants, into 
several leading divisions; but in proceeding to distinguish each 
of these families in description, he will feel the want of some pre- 
cise language to discriminate certain peculiarities not yet suffi- 
ciently attended to. Indeed, in analysing the differences among 
any tribe of plants more minutely than has been done before, we 
shall probably find it necessary either to adopt new terms, or to 
use with more precision some to which a more lax or more gene- 
ral interpretation has been affixed. This privilege I have ven- - 
tured to assume in a few instances, where it seemed to me indis- 
pensable; and particularly with respect to the arms (arma of Lin- 
neus) of the Roses, which have hitherto been called by the general 
term aculei, except in a few instances, where weak pedicellated 
glands have supplied their place; and this latter appearance has 
been designated by the word hispid. Something of the necessity of 
more accurate distinctions seems to have been felt by Sir J. E. 
Smith in his account of the genus Rosa in Rees's Cyclopedia, by - 
VOL. XIL Y | his 
